Month: September 2022

How Silicon Chips Rule the World

Chin@Strategy

When I first arrived in Taiwan as a college student in the summer of 1973, there was no ambiguity whatsoever about the American role on the island. Over the previous two years, President Richard M. Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, had opened relations with the People’s Republic of China in Beijing. But a short distance away in Taiwan, which the People’s Republic considers a breakaway province, U.S. Air Force jets soared overhead. There was a U.S. base right in Taipei, within walking distance of my favorite bookstore.…

Your Friday Briefing: Queen Elizabeth II Dies at 96

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Queen Elizabeth II is dead at 96 Queen Elizabeth died peacefully yesterday afternoon after more than 70 years as the British head of state. She was Britain’s longest-reigning monarch. Here is her obituary, photos from her reign and live updates. The queen was widely revered as she presided over Britain’s adjustment to a post-colonial era and saw it through its divorce from the E.U. Her years as sovereign were a time of upheaval. Still, she sought to project the royal family as a bastion of permanence in a world of…

Evergrande lenders appoint receiver to seize Hong Kong HQ – sources

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Lenders to the struggling Chinese developer Evergrande Group have appointed a receiver to seize its Hong Kong headquarters, two sources have said, as the world’s most indebted developer struggles to emerge from its debt crisis. Evergrande is saddled with more than $300bn (£260bn) in liabilities and has been kept alive by a government-run rescue operation since it defaulted on $22.7bn of overseas debts in December last year. It has been trying to sell its 26-storey China Evergrande Centre in Hong Kong’s Wan Chai district as part of its asset disposal…

China’s government bites down on expensive mooncakes

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“The worst gift is a fruitcake,” said Johnny Carson. “There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other.” Most Chinese people have never heard of Carson, a beloved American television host who died in 2005. Yet many would get his joke. China has its own fruitcake equivalent: yuebing, or mooncakes. 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 time by listening to our audio articles…

Xi Jinping will at last venture abroad again

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By the time President Xi Jinping arrives in Central Asia this month, it will have been nearly a thousand days since he last left China. In the interim, much has changed—just look at his previous destination. In January 2020 Mr Xi visited Myanmar, where he signed some deals and shook hands with Aung San Suu Kyi, then Myanmar’s de facto leader. Today Ms Suu Kyi sits in jail, the victim of a coup carried out by the country’s generals. Listen to this story.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or…

Public patience with zero-covid is wearing thin in China

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The 21m residents of Chengdu faced a tricky decision on September 5th: adhere to the covid-19 lockdown declared by authorities days earlier, or evacuate their homes as a 6.8-magnitude earthquake shook the ground (it killed more than 70 people). In some cases local lockdown enforcers made the choice for them, barring people from leaving even high-rise buildings. Videos of such incidents have circulated online. “I would absolutely trample over anyone blocking me!” wrote one commenter, capturing the public’s mood. Dozens of Chinese cities, home to tens of millions of people,…

Why China Is Not Mourning Mikhail Gorbachev

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Advertisement The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) did not issue a message of condolence on the death of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Not that it was expected to. The CCP regarded Gorbachev as a “gravedigger,” as Deng Xiaoping called him, and has used a stream of insults – “manipulator,” “villain,” “traitor,” and “murderer” – to describe the last Soviet party leader. Since Xi Jinping does not have a dedicated spokesperson, either as the CCP general secretary or the president of the People’s Republic of China, a curt and cryptic statement…

China’s record-breaking wind tunnel goes Mach 33 thanks to Australian invention

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China built the world’s largest piston-driven shock wind tunnel in Mianyang, Sichuan. The facility can simulate flight conditions at 11.5km per second, or more than 33 times the speed of sound for hypersonic weapon research and space programs. Photo: Hypervelocity Aerodynamics Institute, China Aerodynamics Research and Development Centre South China Morning Post

Zambia’s New IMF Deal Shifts China to the Backseat

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Advertisement The last two months have been busy for Situmbeko Musokotwane, Zambia’s finance minister. He has finally secured a zero-interest loan of $1.3 billion with a grace period of five-and-a-half years, and a final maturity of 10 years, from the IMF. The loan was buttressed by a series of prior discussions by Zambia’s creditors that for the first time included China, which accounts for roughly 30 percent of Zambia’s debt – similar to (non-Chinese) private creditors. But is this really a good deal? And what does the IMF deal portend…

Chinese nut-picker survives 200-mile journey in escaped hydrogen balloon

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A man has been found safe after he spent two days aloft in a hydrogen balloon that became untethered while he was using it to harvest pine nuts from a tree, according to Chinese state media. The man, identified only by his surname, Hu, and a partner were collecting pine nuts on Sunday in a forest park in Heilongjiang province in north-east China when they lost control and the balloon sailed off on a 200-mile journey. The other person jumped to the ground, and a search was launched for the…