Month: June 2024

For nearly a decade Roxie was one of Shanghai’s (and China’s) few lesbian bars. It hosted speed dating and pole dancing, and boasted an unusually risqué decor (patrons were encouraged to hang their bras above the counter). But earlier this month the bar announced that it would close. It blamed “forces beyond our control”, a euphemism for official pressure. On June 16th, Roxie’s last night, grieving revellers danced and drank while holding a large rainbow flag over their heads. The Economist

When Cheng Yingsheng, the director of one of China’s top university hospitals, was placed under investigation for alleged corruption in June, it marked a difficult spell for doctors in China. The authorities have recently rattled them with a string of high-profile arrests of leading medical figures. But that is not the doctors’ only worry. The government is also pushing through a health-care reform that is upsetting many of them. The Economist

China’s lunar probe, called Chang’e-6 (pictured), landed in Inner Mongolia on June 25th after a nearly two-month-long mission to the Moon’s far side. Scientists hope that the samples it collected will provide new insights into lunar geology and the formation of planets. China is the only country to have explored the side of the Moon that is always facing away from Earth. The successful mission is a boost for China’s space programme, to which it has devoted vast resources. It hopes to send astronauts to the Moon by 2030. And…

In politics, fringe ideas can become mainstream and vice versa. The “window of political possibility” can expand or move, as Joe Overton, an American political analyst, once put it. The same is true even in communist China. In 1978, for example, the country’s Overton window made a momentous shift. Two years after the death of Chairman Mao Zedong, it became possible for the party to acknowledge that the great helmsman was not infallible. This pragmatism paved the way for faster economic reform and for Deng Xiaoping to become China’s paramount…

NO ETHICS committee would let researchers trap millions of children indoors for months, just to test the effects on their eyesight. Yet China’s strict zero-covid rules—notably a nationwide lockdown that closed many schools between January and May 2020, leaving children studying online with few chances to leave their homes—created just such a natural experiment. The Economist

ABOUT 500 pupils study at the Chinese School Dubai. Most are children of Chinese expatriates who have moved to the United Arab Emirates for work. At the school’s swish suburban campus, pupils follow much the same curriculum they would at home. On one wall hangs a bland quote from China’s leader, Xi Jinping, picked out in shiny gold. The institution, which has more than doubled in size since its opening in 2020, is a pilot project: the first of several international schools the Communist Party talks of setting up in…

MAO ZEDONG persecuted the rich. But his successor as paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, decided to “let some people get rich first”, as he launched market-oriented reforms. Now a growing number of Chinese are rich—and the pendulum has swung back, with the government cracking down on ostentatious displays of wealth. The Economist

Four hundred kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, in the Norwegian port of Kirkenes, there are still some who dream that this sleepy town will one day become an important shipping hub. They see it as the western end of a new, faster sea route from China to Europe, made possible by the impact of global warming on ice-filled waters off the Siberian coast. With war raging in Ukraine, this ambition now sounds fanciful. China’s support for Russia is fuelling Western distrust of the Asian power’s “polar silk road” plans.…

“My government is pro-panda,” said Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, as he prepared to host the highest-ranking Chinese visitor to his country in seven years. Mr Albanese was simply referring to the bears that China has lent to Australia’s Adelaide Zoo. Still, such sound-bites had long been rare before he was elected in 2022. Relations between China and Australia had suffered years of acrimony. The mood is now much changed. During his four-day trip to Australia, beginning on June 15th, China’s prime minister, Li Qiang, will be keen to show…