Month: October 2022

What Institutional Norms Are Left After the 20th Party Congress?

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Advertisement Over the past week, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) held its 20th Party Congress. At the end, membership of the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC), the CCP’s highest political body, was revealed. Unsurprisingly, despite having reached what usually constitutes retirement age, Xi Jinping, 69, stayed on as top leader. Also unsurprising, given their ages, 65-year-old Zhao Leji and 67-year-old Wang Huning likewise continued on the PSC. This is not to say, however, that the 20th Party Congress provided no surprises. Far from it. Visually, the most dramatic surprise was the…

Why People Are Flocking to a Symbol of Taiwan’s Authoritarian Past

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TAIPEI, Taiwan — Ringed by barbed wire and high gray walls, and once the site of a secretive military detention center, the museum just south of Taipei makes for a surprising tourist hot spot. The Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park, housed on the campus of a former military school, is a chilling reminder of the excesses of Taiwan’s not-so-distant authoritarian past when its rulers imposed martial law for four decades. The moldering concrete buildings with fading paint were once the site of secret tribunals where political dissidents were tried and…

What are China’s major infrastructure projects in an economically fraught 2022?

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China’s Ministry of Water Resources said that 703.6 billion yuan (US$98 billion) was invested in water-conservancy infrastructure projects during the first eight months of 2022 – an increase of 63.9 per cent over the same period in 2021. In total, the ministry said that construction had begun on more than 19,000 water-conservancy projects, of which 31 were considered “major” projects. 01:52 China launches mega US$10 billion canal project in a bid to help its economy China’s ambitious South-North Water Transfer Project – an underground network of water tunnels that relocates…

Xi Jinping’s party purge prompts fears of greater Taiwan invasion risk

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Xi Jinping’s purging of political rivals and elevation of loyalists to the top ranks of the Chinese Communist party has raised fears that his now unfettered and unquestionable power could increase the risk of an attack on Taiwan. Beijing has pledged to annex Taiwan under a disputed claim that it is a Chinese province, and in recent years has increased its military activity and other forms of harassment and coercion. No timeline has been set, but senior defence figures have said China could be capable of invasion as early as…

Justice Dept. Charges 2 Chinese Citizens With Spying for Huawei

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WASHINGTON — The Justice Department announced on Monday that it had indicted two Chinese intelligence officials who are believed to have unsuccessfully tried to obtain inside information about a federal investigation into a Chinese telecommunications company accused of stealing trade secrets, which people familiar with the situation later identified as Huawei Technologies. The Chinese intelligence officials, Guochun He and Zheng Wang, paid bribes to an official with access to sensitive details of the investigation into Huawei by the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of New York, according to charging…

Chinese spy duo charged in Huawei case as US condemns ‘egregious’ interference

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Two Chinese intelligence officers tried to bribe a US law enforcement official as part of an effort to obtain inside information about a criminal case against the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei, federal prosecutors alleged in an indictment unsealed on Monday. The announcement of charges against the two alleged agents came as attorney general Merrick Garland detailed two other cases in which Chinese intelligence operatives harassed dissidents inside the United States and pressured US academics to work for them. Garland said that the cases showed that China “sought to interfere with…

Interview: ‘History is something you want to be on the right side of’

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Since its founding in 1986, the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity has striven “to combat indifference, intolerance and injustice through international dialogue and youth-focused programs that promote acceptance, understanding and equality.” In late January, the human rights organization ran a full-page advertisement in The New York Times calling for a boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing unless China ended its persecution of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Now, the foundation has added grantmaking to its lineup of activities, focusing on funding advocacy for the Uyghurs.  The foundation expects to…

The Hidden Audience of China’s Undiplomatic Diplomacy

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Advertisement On October 16, a Hong Kong protester in Manchester, England, was dragged onto Chinese consulate grounds and beaten by unidentified staffers. The violence broke out as individuals emerged from the consulate and began destroying protesters’ posters, which depicted Xi Jinping wearing only a crown and underwear. As they retreated, the men pulled a nearby protester inside the consulate gates and kicked him repeatedly on the ground. Manchester police eventually separated both parties, but not before eyewitness video had ignited the latest China-U.K. diplomatic controversy. The consulate’s actions – reactionary,…