Day: October 11, 2022

Your Wednesday Briefing: Ukraine Seeks an ‘Air Shield’

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Zelensky seeks an “air shield for Ukraine” A day after more than 80 missiles pummeled Ukraine, killing at least 19 people, President Volodymyr Zelensky asked the Group of 7 nations at an emergency virtual meeting to help his country defend its airspace. Zelensky asked for antimissile systems, or at least financing for them. “When Ukraine receives a sufficient number of modern and effective air defense systems,” he said, “the key element of Russian terror — missile strikes — will cease to work.” The G7 leaders pledged “undeterred and steadfast” military…

Laos put on edge by two recent brutal killings of Chinese nationals

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The grisly killings of two Chinese nationals, whose bodies were found stuffed into bags and floating in rivers within two weeks of each other, have put residents of Laos on edge. No connection between the two killings has been confirmed, but authorities say both may have been involved in business deals gone sour, sources in Laos told Radio Free Asia.  On Sept. 15, villagers from Vientiane Province’s Phon Hong district found a body floating near a dam that was identified as belonging to Chinese businessman Yang Youhai, 37, who had…

Europe’s Response to China’s Quest for Technology

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Advertisement The risks related to academic cooperation with China recently received high-level political attention in Europe. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her State of the Union Address specifically mentioned a scandal involving a research center on human rights in Amsterdam. The allegedly independent center was funded by Chinese entities. It had to close down after it became public that the academics affiliated with the center embellished China’s human rights record and defended it on Chinese state television. After using this example of China’s interference in European academia,…

Two reported dead from ‘rodent plague’ in Tibet

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Two Tibetans have died from a pneumonic plague spread by mice and other rodents in a southern county of Tibet, with Chinese authorities now ordering county residents to stay at home, RFA has learned. The two victims, who lived in Lhoka city in Lhoka (in Chinese, Shannan) prefecture’s Tsona (Cuona) county, both died in September, a source living in the region told RFA, adding that neither has been publicly identified. “Moreover, people are not allowed to discuss it,” the source said, requesting anonymity in order to speak freely. “But we…

UK to designate China a ‘threat’ in hawkish foreign policy shift

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China is to be formally designated a “threat” to Britain in a hasty rewrite of Boris Johnson’s defence and foreign policy that is being brought forward to end confusion among ministers about how to deal with Beijing. Under Johnson, China had been categorised as a “systemic competitor” but the new prime minister, Liz Truss, wants to take a more hawkish stance quickly, as she seeks to shore up support for her faltering premiership on her backbenches. The redesignation will bring the UK’s official position towards China close to its stance…

China’s 20th Party Congress: A Downside Scenario

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Advertisement I previously explored an upside case for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s 20th National Congress, due to begin on October 16. In that scenario, Xi Jinping would win a third term as general secretary, but he would preside over a Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) weighted toward pro-market reformers, who could potentially drive a shift in economic policy. That projection was based on recent age and term limits for the CCP elite being largely upheld. By contrast, a downside case would see those norms scrapped. As I explore in this…

Influencing the Influencer: China and Elon Musk

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Advertisement Elon Musk, the businessman behind Tesla, SpaceX, and many other innovative and successful ventures, is equally well known for his controversial comments, whether posted on Twitter or other channels. The most recent example is his recommendation to “figure out” a special administrative zone for Taiwan, one that is “reasonably palatable” and, he thinks “possibl[y]” or even “probably” could be “more lenient than Hong Kong.” Given that his comment was featured in a “Lunch with the FT” interview with the Financial Times, a more casual and wide-ranging discussion over the…

JD.com’s logistics arm pushes ahead with unmanned robotic grocery deliveries as Amazon pulls plug on similar trials

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Dada Nexus is teaming up with a robot start-up to pilot unmanned grocery deliveries in China’s eastern Jiangsu province, as the logistics affiliate of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com pushes ahead with the technology despite Amazon pulling the plug on similar efforts in the US. Shanghai-based Dada and Infermove, a Beijing-based robotics company, said in a joint statement that they are working with local merchants in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, to deliver parcels to doorsteps by using sidewalk robots, which can automatically navigate densely-populated areas. The delivery robots weigh 50 kilograms and…

One Nation Under Xi: How China’s Leader Is Remaking Its Identity

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Across Tibetan villages in southwest China, Communist Party officials have been spreading the top leader Xi Jinping’s gospel of national unity: that every ethnic group must fuse into one indivisible China with a shared heritage dating back over 5,000 years. Thousands of officials in Ganzi, a Tibetan region of Sichuan Province, have been paired with families to collect information and give out gifts of rice, cooking oil and beatific portraits of Mr. Xi — all to hammer home his message of an encompassing Chinese identity, from Xinjiang in the west…