Day: September 12, 2024

LAST YEAR engineers at China’s Shidaowan nuclear power plant turned off the pumps pushing coolant around the reactor core. Then they waited. At a typical power plant, this would have been dangerous. Nuclear reactions create lots of heat, which is normally transferred by a coolant and then converted into electricity. With the pumps off, the nuclear fuel might have continued to heat up until it liquefied and damaged the reactor. Such “meltdowns” can release radiation. That is what happened in 2011 at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Japan after…

The announcement came at a routine press briefing on September 5th. Mao Ning, a foreign-ministry spokesperson, said China was grateful for the “desire and love” of the foreign families who wanted to adopt Chinese children. But, she added, China would no longer allow the practice. Exceptions would be made for foreigners adopting stepchildren and children of blood relatives in China. For everyone else the new policy would take effect immediately, meaning even adoptions already in progress would be halted. The Economist

“FROM CHAOS to order, from stability to prosperity.” That is Xi Jinping’s goal for Hong Kong. Ever since pro-democracy protests swept the city in 2019, China’s ruler has tried to reimpose control. In many ways he has succeeded. Today Hong Kong is less tumultuous than it was back then. The covid-19 pandemic, which saw the city close itself to the world, helped to calm things down. So have two draconian national-security laws, one imposed on the city by the central government in 2020 and another adopted by the local legislature…