Month: September 2023

China’s top political adviser Wang Huning urges support for Xinjiang in education, culture and industry

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China’s top political adviser called for more support for the western region of Xinjiang in education, cultural exchanges and cooperation between local cadres and officials from other parts of the country, state media reported on Friday. Wang called for efforts to develop the industrial, education and cultural sectors in the region as well as promote personnel exchanges and improve interactions among different ethnic groups. He also stressed the importance of “pairing assistance”, referring to a nearly 25-year-old national strategy in which China’s coastal provinces and municipalities are paired with cities…

TikTok has matchmaking service for staff to play cupid for co-workers

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TikTok has an internal matchmaking service for employees to introduce their colleagues to friends and family members, it has been revealed. The channel, called Meet Cute, sits on the workplace tool used by thousands of TikTok employees around the world for document hosting, video conferencing. It also helps people find a potential romantic partner from among their colleagues. On the platform, which was first reported by Forbes, employees can advertise their family, friends or acquaintances to colleagues, with a feed of posts that show information that typical dating apps would…

Troops arrest more than 100 villagers in Myanmar’s Magway region

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Junta troops arrested and interrogated more than 100 villagers in Magway region’s Gangaw township after anti-junta militias captured weapons in a raid on an arms depot, local People’s Defense Forces said this week. The roundup began on Monday in Kant That village, where villagers had been armed and told to defend the depot. Earlier in the day, combined People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) attacked the arms depot, according to a statement Thursday by the Yaw National Revolution Force. They fought a 20-minute battle with junta troops and affiliated Pyu Saw Htee…

Trial of two Chinese activists held since 2021 begins in secret in Guangzhou

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The trial of two prominent activists detained since 2021 has begun in secret in the Chinese city of Guangzhou, in a case that has attracted widespread attention to Beijing’s repression of civil society. Huang Xueqin, a feminist activist and journalist who covered China’s #MeToo movement, and Wang Jianbing, a labour rights activist, were detained in Guangzhou in September 2021, shortly before Huang was due to move to the UK to study at the University of Sussex. The pair were charged with “inciting subversion of state power” the following month. The…

Gold Mining Is Poisoning the Planet With Mercury

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Jeovane de Jesus Aguiar was knee-deep in mud in the 100-yard gash he had cut into the Amazon rainforest, filtering brown water out of a pan, when he found the small, shiny flake he was looking for: a mixture of gold and mercury. Mr. Aguiar had drizzled liquid mercury into the ground in his makeshift gold mine on the eastern edge of the small South American nation of Suriname, just as he had every few days. The toxic element mixes with gold dust and forms an amalgam he can pluck…

China fuels global surge in mpox cases as LGBTQ+ stigma hampers response

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China is fuelling a global surge in mpox cases, accounting for the majority of new cases reported in September, according to the World Health Organization. The number of weekly cases reported globally increased by 328% in the week to 10 September, data shows. Most of that rise came from China, where more than 500 new cases were reported in August. The WHO said China was experiencing “sustained community transmission” of the virus, which was first detected as an imported case in September last year. Mpox was previously known as Monkeypox…

Chinese Premier Li Qiang pushes hi-tech firms to do more to boost Beijing’s self-reliance in face of US restrictions

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Chinese Premier Li Qiang has called on hi-tech firms to play a greater role in bolstering the country’s technological self-reliance and stabilise its supply and industrial chains, during his latest visit to Chinese manufacturers facing US restrictions. Li made the remarks on Thursday as he visited three of China’s leading technology powerhouses, including Beijing U-Precision Technology, an emerging builder of chip-making machines with years of experience in nano-scale ultra-precision measurement and control technology. “Our country’s economy is at a critical juncture in high-quality development, and we must further enhance our…

Asian Games Open Saturday in China

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The Asian Games are an attention grabber. For starters, they involve more participants than the Summer Olympics. Organizers say more than 12,000 will be entered when the opening ceremony takes place Saturday in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou. That is more than the 10,500 expected for next year’s Paris Olympics. The giant numbers are partly due to the staggering array of events with many regional specialties, sports, and games you won’t find in the Olympics. And there’s also cricket, which appears headed to the Olympics as soon as 2028…

China property faces further ratings downgrades

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Moody’s has put two of China’s leading developers on review for possible downgrades in the wake of downgrading the country’s entire property sector to negative territory last week. China Vanke Co and China Jinmao Holdings Group, two of China’s most well-known builders, are now in the spotlight, while seven other Chinese builders had their outlooks downgraded to “negative” on Thursday, just a week after the ratings firm cut the property sector’s outlook to negative from stable. Moody’s said it thought property sales were unlikely to rebound despite government support in…

EU trade commissioner to seek relief from export barriers during China visit

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Receive free EU-China relations updates We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest EU-China relations news every morning. EU trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis will arrive in China on Friday with a blunt message: buy more of our goods. Dombrovskis is expected to convey a long list of commercial grievances as well as concern about a trade deficit that has ballooned to almost €400bn — which EU ambassador Jorge Toledo called “the highest in the history of mankind” at a panel discussion on Thursday — and a…