The British colonial government changed its governance model as a response to deadly anti-colonial riots in 1967, which were sparked by a labour dispute and supported by Beijing. More public housing was built and free primary education was introduced, partly in a bid to ward off further social movements, Dr Li says. BBC
This article is part of the Debatable newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it on Wednesdays. “A Demographic Crisis.” “A Blinking Light Ahead.” “The Death of Hope.” Those are some of the dire headlines that have been written in recent years about the sluggish pace of U.S. population growth, which in 2021 fell to its lowest rate ever — just 0.1 percent. While the pandemic played a major role in driving last year’s decline, the country’s population growth has been slowing for much of the last decade, depressed…
The European proposal would make the national authorities of the bloc’s 27 members responsible for enforcing the ban. But critics say that failing to identify the regions or industries that are the biggest culprits, as well as leaving individual nations to determine how to implement the policy, stood out as major weaknesses. In the United States, the authorities are empowered to seize goods suspected of being the products of forced labor coming from Xinjiang. But in Europe, the authorities have to prove that the goods are in breach of the…
Advertisement Chinese leader Xi Jinping is keeping the West guessing about whether Beijing will cooperate with tougher sanctions on Russia as he meets President Vladimir Putin a year after declaring they had a “no limits” friendship ahead of the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. China has avoided violating sanctions, but its purchases of Russian oil and gas rose almost 60 percent in August over a year ago to $11.2 billion. That helps to top up Moscow’s cash flow after the United States, Europe, and Japan cut purchases and expelled Russia from…
In 2019, this film from Chinese director Zhang Yimou was pulled from the Berlin film festival because of, ahem, technical problems. The real reason, widely speculated at the time, was likely to have been politically motivated: the Chinese Communist party’s displeasure with the film’s portrait of the Cultural Revolution. Now, re-edited and partially reshot, it’s finally getting a release. And with all the tinkering and tweaks, what censors haven’t been able to expunge is the torment and suffering on the face of Zhang Yi’s political prisoner; this is a deeply…
Major setbacks for Moscow’s forces in Ukraine will further test the “limitless partnership” between China and Russia when their leaders meet this week for the first time since the invasion, analysts have said. The meeting of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, scheduled for Thursday at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, is likely to involve jostling for influence in central Asia, where the two global powers have long waged a “quiet rivalry”. The SCO summit, an annual meeting of Eurasian leaders on regional politics, economics and security, occurs…
Mr Xi will begin his three-day trip in Kazakhstan on Wednesday. He will then meet Mr Putin on Thursday at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Samarkand, which will run from 15-16 September. Central Asian countries – Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan – and fellow members Iran, India and Pakistan are also due to attend. BBC
In one image Tibetan monks, clad in burgundy and orange robes, gather around a table as a police officer pricks a monk’s finger. In another image children at a kindergarten line up to have their blood taken by officers sitting at a rainbow-coloured table. The pictures, posted by the authorities on WeChat, a social-media platform, show an official campaign to collect the dna of Tibetans. It is often as casual as it is invasive. Many of the posts suggest police are pricking fingers while completing other tasks, such as registering…
Advertisement Later this week, Chinese President Xi Jinping is heading out on his first international trip since January 2020. He’ll be paying a state visit to Kazakhstan, followed by a state visit to Uzbekistan, where Xi will also attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Samarkand. All eyes are on the geopolitical implications of the trip, not least because Russia has announced that Xi will be holding a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the SCO summit. That will be their first in-person meeting since…
“Once Mr Lukauskas officially assumes his post, the Lithuanian office stationed in Taiwan is basically considered in operation,” Chen said. Lukauskas recently accompanied a group of senior Lithuanian officials on a weeklong visit to Taiwan, Chen said. Advertisement A 28-member delegation from laser and biotechnology firms led by Karolis Zemaitis, Lithuania’s vice-minister of economy and innovation, arrived in Taiwan on Saturday, marking the fourth delegation from the European country to visit the island in the past four months. 02:27 Latest US delegation to visit Taiwan pushes for closer economic ties…