Category: NYT

Biden the President Wants to Curb TikTok. Biden the Candidate Embraces Its Stars.

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The White House is so concerned about the security risks of TikTok that federal workers are not allowed to use the app on their government phones. Top Biden administration officials have even helped craft legislation that could ban TikTok in the United States. But those concerns were pushed aside on Thursday, the night of President Biden’s State of the Union address, when dozens of social media influencers — many of them TikTok stars — were invited to the White House for a watch party. The crowd took selfies in the…

Hong Kong Pushes Strict New Security Law With Unusual Speed

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Under pressure from Beijing, officials in Hong Kong are scrambling to pass a long-shelved national security law that could impose life imprisonment for treason, insurrection and colluding with external forces, stiff penalties aimed at further curbing dissent in the Asian financial center. The law known as Article 23 has long been a source of public discontent in Hong Kong, a former British colony that had been promised certain freedoms when it was returned to Chinese rule in 1997. Now, it is expected to be enacted with unusual speed in the…

TikTok Prompts Users to Call Congress to Fight Possible Ban

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Washington lawmakers introduced a bill this week calling for TikTok to cut ties with its Chinese parent company or face a ban in the United States. When many users opened the popular app on Thursday, the company greeted them with a message to oppose the legislation, prompting a flood of phone calls to several Capitol Hill offices. “Stop a TikTok shutdown,” the message on the app read. It included a button for people to call their representatives, saying: “Let Congress know what TikTok means to you and tell them to…

Michael Spavor Reaches Settlement With Canada Over Detention by China

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The government of Canada has reached a financial settlement with one of two Canadian men it contends were arbitrarily detained for nearly three years by China in a retaliatory move, the man’s lawyer said. John K. Phillips, who represents Michael Spavor, told The Associated Press Wednesday evening that “I am only able to say that the matter between Mr. Spavor and the government of Canada has been resolved.” Mr. Spavor, a businessman who had extensive dealings in North Korea, and Michael Kovrig, a then a Canadian diplomat who was on…

How China Came to Dominate the World in Solar Energy

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China unleashed the full might of its solar energy industry last year. It installed more solar panels than the United States has in its history. It cut the wholesale price of panels it sells by nearly half. And its exports of fully assembled solar panels climbed 38 percent while its exports of key components almost doubled. Get ready for an even bigger display of China’s solar energy dominance. While the United States and Europe are trying to revive renewable energy production and help companies fend off bankruptcy, China is racing…

Chinese National Accused of Stealing AI Secrets From Google

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A Chinese citizen who recently quit his job as a software engineer for Google in California has been charged with trying to transfer artificial intelligence technology to a Beijing-based company that paid him secretly, according to a federal indictment unsealed on Wednesday. Prosecutors accused Linwei Ding, who was part of the team that designs and maintains Google’s vast A.I. supercomputer data system, of stealing information about the “architecture and functionality” of the system, and of pilfering software used to “orchestrate” supercomputers “at the cutting edge of machine learning and A.I.…

Big American Tech Profits From Chinese Ad Spending Spree

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The trade relationship between China and the United States has plenty of friction. But at least one area is booming: Chinese start-ups looking to establish a presence in the West are spending billions of dollars for advertisements on services owned by some of Silicon Valley’s biggest technology companies. Temu, the international arm of the Chinese e-commerce giant Pinduoduo, is flooding Google with ads for absurdly inexpensive goods. With an initial public offering looming, the fast-fashion merchant Shein is inundating Instagram with ads for clothes and accessories at rock-bottom prices. Developers…

John Kerry: ‘I Feel Deeply Frustrated’

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When former Secretary of State John Kerry stepped into a newly created post as America’s top climate diplomat in 2021, the reputation of the United States abroad was, in his words, “in the crapper,” and the pathway to meeting the world’s climate goals looked, to most, very narrow. Kerry, now 80, is stepping down this week to take a role on the Biden re-election campaign. In the last three years, the climate landscape has changed in two big and contradictory ways: The goal the world set in Paris in 2015…

The Chinese Immigrants Making Their Way to New York City

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When busloads of migrants from Venezuela and Latin America started turning up on New York City streets in 2022, it spurred a crisis that has overwhelmed city shelters and incited protests over immigration policies. And while Mayor Eric Adams and city leaders have sought to slow the pace of new arrivals, there has been another, smaller but also growing group of migrants coming into the city — largely unnoticed. Thousands of Chinese migrants have also made their way to New York, with many following on the heels of migrants from…

China Cancels a News Conference, Shutting a Window for Its People

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For more than 30 years, the Chinese premier’s annual news conference was the only time that a top leader took questions from journalists about the state of the country. It was the only occasion for members of the public to size up for themselves China’s No. 2 official. It was the only moment when some Chinese might feel a faint sense of political participation in a country without elections. On Monday, China announced that the premier’s news conference, marking the end of the country’s annual rubber-stamp legislature, will no longer…