Month: June 2023

Between the Superpowers: What Is Germany’s China Policy?

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Advertisement On June 14, the time had finally come: the German governing coalition under Chancellor Olaf Scholz adopted Germany’s first National Security Strategy. After months of wrangling within the coalition, the paper has been celebrated as an expression of the much-vaunted political “turning of the times,” or Zeitenwende, in Germany’s foreign and security policy. But those that have been waiting for clarity on how the German government intends to deal with China and the Indo-Pacific in the future might be disappointed. Already in March 2019, the EU Commission had published…

Shein Flew Influencers to China to Help Its Image. A Backlash Ensued.

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When the ultrafast-fashion retailer Shein invited Kenya Freeman on a free two-week trip to China, she was thrilled. It has become a status symbol for Instagram and TikTok creators to be taken on paid excursions by brands, and Ms. Freeman, who had also been designing clothes for Shein for two and a half years, saw it as a major opportunity. But while brands often plan such trips to promote new products or generate online buzz, Shein’s pitch was unusual: She was among half a dozen influencers in the United States…

How China sees Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny

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What lessons might China’s leaders learn from the recent Wagnerian drama in Russia? To hear scholars in Beijing tell it, China is not the country in need of lessons. Instead, it is for Russia to study China’s good example. Specifically, Vladimir Putin should learn from the wisdom of China’s Communist Party founders, who imposed strict, top-down political control over armed fighters from the earliest days of the revolution. They cite Chairman Mao Zedong’s dictum: “The party commands the gun, the gun must never be allowed to command the party.” Listen…

Why China is so keen to salvage shipwrecks in the South China Sea

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Deep under the South China Sea, below the reach of sunlight, lies treasure. Last year Chinese researchers found two rotting shipwrecks some 1,500 metres down and 20km apart. One contains thousands of porcelain cups and vases, their bright blue-and-white glazes half-covered in silt. The other holds timber. The two wrecks offer a glimpse of global trade during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), when porcelain fired in the imperial kilns of southern China was shipped to buyers as far away as Europe. The timber was probably headed in the other direction, perhaps…

A Chinese reality-TV show about farming doubles as propaganda

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A young man drives a harvester through a rice field. Slow down, a farmer chides him. But he zooms on—then gets stuck in the mud. Welcome to “Become a Farmer”, the hit reality-TV programme on iQIYI, a Netflix-like Chinese service. The show transplants ten preppy actors and musicians from the city to the countryside in Zhejiang province, where they must live together and try their luck at farming. Listen to this story.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android. Your browser does not support the <audio> element. The 20-something…

To understand Xi Jinping, it helps to be steeped in the classics

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Take four Chinese characters, all of them in everyday use. Put them in a certain order and, lo, they become a phrase that looks like classical Chinese—the kind of language used by the literati of yore. The idea they convey could be expressed just as succinctly in colloquial Chinese, but the classical style has gravitas. And it is a phrase loved by Xi Jinping, China’s leader, so all must follow suit. Listen to this story.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android. Your browser does not support the <audio>…

China sees critical grains cut into copious cotton yields, including in boycotted Xinjiang region

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The area has been ordered to allocate an additional 4.8 million mu of cropland for grains this year, with much of that supplanting cotton, as the government encourages farmers to switch to plants for food, according to the centre. The decline also came after the central government lowered subsidies for cotton farmers in Xinjiang in April, as well as several impactful bouts with bad weather, including low temperatures, sandstorms and heavy rain during the sowing season, it said. Many farmers had to shift to other crops such as corn after…

South Korean tech giant Samsung skips MWC Shanghai 2023 trade show for unknown reasons in break from annual participation

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Swedish telecommunications equipment maker Ericsson and US-based Qualcomm – a developer of semiconductors, software and services related to mobile communications – also did not have booths at the Shanghai event this year, according to a representative from GSMA. Ericsson planned to set up a booth at MWC Shanghai, but then “backed out” just before the event opened this week, according to the representative who declined to be named. Qualcomm was initially booked as an exhibitor, but later decided to cancel for reasons unknown to the trade show’s organiser. Advertisement But…

Tech war: chairman of YMTC, China’s top memory chip maker, warns of ‘turbulence and disorder’ in semiconductor sector amid geopolitical tensions

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YMTC had been hit hard by export controls on chip-making machinery, imposed by the US Commerce Department last October, which aim to cap China’s logic semiconductor production at the 14-nanometre node process, and DRAM and NAND flash at 18-nm and 128 layers, respectively. Advertisement Chip manufacturing equipment is displayed at the American Tec booth during the opening of trade show Semicon China in Shanghai on June 29, 2023. Photo: Reuters YMTC’s Chen highlighted in his speech how “harmonious” globalisation is threatened, as geopolitical tensions have affected market competition, innovation and…

Meta Oversight Board Urges Cambodia Prime Minister’s Suspension from Facebook

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Meta Platforms’ Oversight Board on Thursday called for the suspension of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen for six months, saying a video posted on his Facebook page had violated Meta’s rules against violent threats. The board, which is funded by Meta but operates independently, said the company erred in leaving up the video and ordered its removal from Facebook. Meta, in a written statement, agreed to take down the video but said it would respond to the recommendation to suspend Hun Sen after a review. A suspension would silence the…