In a rare encounter, a Vietnamese Politburo member met to engage in dialogue with a dozen intellectuals and artists, including several well-known dissidents who are critical of the ruling Communist Party, attendees told Radio Free Asia. Sunday’s meeting in Saigon, which had been in the works for several months, had been proactively sought by Ho Chi Minh City Party Secretary Nguyen Van Nen, said poet Hoang Thuy Hung, one of the attendees. Vietnam’s 16-member Political Bureau, or Politburo, is the highest body of the Communist Party of Vietnam, and is…
Month: March 2025
China could greatly reduce its reliance on coal. It probably will not
In Shuozhou, a nondescript city of 1.6m people in northern China’s Shanxi province, the veins of the local economy run black with coal. To the north of the city lies one of the largest open-pit mines in the country. Shuozhou’s mines churn out 200m tonnes of the black stuff every year. Lines of lorries carry it to be washed, sorted, then burned in power stations across the country. If China ditched coal in favour of cleaner sources of power, the city would be “finished”, warns Sun Zhigang, a recently retired…
The War Room newsletter: How Chinese hackers hunt American secrets
This is the introduction to the War Room, a weekly, subscriber-only newsletter in which our correspondents turn their gaze on the latest developments in defence. Shashank Joshi, our defence editor, on Chinese hackers and how they operate The average attendance at football matches in England’s Premier League is about 40,000. Even Manchester City, the current champions, boasted only 53,000 or so last year. Compare that with the Wangding Cup in Shenzhen, a city in south-eastern China. The tournament attracted more than 60,000 people in 2024, according to its organisers. The cup…
Seniors with HIV: A ticking time bomb for China
In January 2025, a 79-year-old man went viral on social media after testing positive for HIV at a hospital in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong where he was being treated for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Asked when he could have become infected, the man told the Yangcheng Evening News that he had found a lover after his wife died 10 years ago, but had “never used condoms.” News of the case quickly went viral on social media, registering in the list of hot search topics on Sina Weibo. The…
China claims discovery of 100 million-ton oilfield in South China Sea
Updated on March 31, 2025, at 12:30 p.m. TAIPEI, Taiwan – The China National Offshore Oil Corporation, or CNOOC, has discovered an oilfield in the South China Sea with proven reserves exceeding 100 million tons, Chinese state media said on Monday. The oilfield in the eastern South China Sea – the Huizhou 19-6 oilfield – was about 170 kilometers (106 miles) from the city of Shenzhen in southern China’s Guangdong Province, the Xinhua News Agency reported. Test drilling of the oilfield, which has yielded a daily production of 413 barrels…
The Chinese government is cracking down on predatory law enforcement
To rescue china’s lacklustre economy, the ruling Communist Party is trying to revive the animal spirits of entrepreneurs and rehabilitate the profit motive. Xi Jinping, China’s leader, has welcomed Jack Ma, a leading tech boss, back in from the cold, and basked in the reflected glory of DeepSeek, a private ai firm. The government has also recently released five employees of Mintz, an American due-diligence firm, detained in 2023. To get rich is, if not glorious, at least less dangerous than it seemed a few years ago. The Economist
Estate agents in China are trying everything to sell flats
On the list of professions that are currently flourishing in China, estate agents do not come high up. Houses were once easy to sell, the surest investment available. But as a result of a four-year slump in the market, millions of homes now sit unsold. Some already paid-for properties are not even getting built. New home starts fell by almost 30% in the first two months of this year, compared with a year earlier. As of February, average new home prices had fallen for 21 months in a row. The…
Chinese hackers are getting bigger, better and stealthier
China’s POWER is growing rapidly every year. From warships to missiles, the country is churning out hardware at an extraordinary rate. In the unseen, online world, it is making similar leaps. On March 4th America’s Justice Department charged eight Chinese nationals with large-scale hacking of government agencies, news outlets and dissidents in America and around the world, on behalf of i-Soon, a Chinese company, at the direction of the Chinese government. It also indicted two officials who it said “directed the hacks”. The Economist
Why China hates the Panama Canal deal, but still may not block it
“We didn’t give it to China. We gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.” Thus spoke Donald Trump shortly after BlackRock, an American investment firm, announced on March 4th that it would buy two ports on the Panama Canal from ck Hutchison (ckh), their Hong Kong-based operator. China’s initial response was strikingly muted, given the genesis and scope of the deal, which covers a total of 43 ports in 23 countries. The Economist
Ageism is rampant in Chinese companies
On March 5th China’s prime minister, Li Qiang, in his annual speech at the National People’s Congress (npc), China’s rubber-stamp parliament, promised to end “discrimination in the workplace”. He gave no specifics but Communist Party leaders, always alert to discontent in the workforce, have in recent years allowed more laws to protect workers. Since 2005 local governments have removed bans on hiring those with hiv or hepatitis b. The first sex-discrimination lawsuit was filed in 2012, and since 2023 companies found guilty of discrimination against women can be fined up…