Tag: Chengdu (China)

Leaked Files Show the Secret World of China’s Hackers for Hire

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A cache of documents from a Chinese security firm working for Chinese government agencies showed an extensive effort to hack many foreign governments and telecommunications firms, particularly in Asia, as well as targets of the country’s domestic surveillance apparatus. The documents, which were posted to a public website last week, revealed an eight-year effort to target databases and tap communications in South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, India and elsewhere in Asia. The files also revealed a campaign to monitor closely the activities of ethnic minorities in China and online…

Some Authors Were Left Out of Awards Held in China. Leaked Emails Show Why.

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The Hugo Awards, a major literary prize for science fiction, have been engulfed in controversy over revelations that some writers may have been excluded based on their perceived criticism of China or the Chinese government. Suspicions in the science fiction community have been building for weeks that something was amiss with last year’s awards, which rotate to a different city each year, and in 2023 were hosted in Chengdu, China. Now, newly released emails show that the awards were likely manipulated because of political concerns. Here’s what we know. What…

Fiji’s Leader Declines Invitation to China, Saying He Tripped and Fell

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Fiji’s uneasy relationship with China has hit an unusual roadblock, in the form of an office door. In a video posted to social media on Tuesday, the Pacific island nation’s prime minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, said he was declining an invitation to visit China this week because he had tripped while looking at his phone, striking his head on a door at the entrance to a government building. “I do not know whether my head is hurt more than the door, or the door hurt more than my head,” Mr. Rabuka…

Why China’s Young People Are Not Getting Married

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It has been a brutal three years for China’s young adults. Their unemployment rate is soaring amid a wave of corporate layoffs. Draconian coronavirus restrictions are over, but not the sense of uncertainty about the future they created. For many people, the recent turmoil is another reason to postpone major life decisions — contributing to a record-low marriage rate and complicating the government’s efforts to stave off a demographic crisis. Grace Zhang, a tech worker who had long been ambivalent about marriage, spent two months barricaded in the government lockdown…

In China, It’s Time to Splurge Again, and the Luxury Industry Is Relieved

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This time last year, Shanghai — China’s capital of fashion and luxury — was in the throes of a ruthlessly enforced Covid lockdown. The city’s glittering high-end malls and avenues lined with flagship stores stood practically empty. Today it is a different story. Huge crowds on a recent weekend flocked to top retail destinations on or near Nanjing Road, the hub of glamour in China ever since the country’s first large department stores began to open there in 1917. “I splurge more extravagantly,” Sunny Zhang, 24, said as she waited…

How China’s Police Used Phones and Faces to Track Protesters

Chin@Strategy

On Sunday, when Mr. Zhang went to protest China’s strict Covid policies in Beijing, he thought he came prepared to go undetected. He wore a balaclava and goggles to cover his face. When it seemed that plainclothes police officers were following him, he ducked into the bushes and changed into a new jacket. He lost his tail. That night, when Mr. Zhang, who is in his 20s, returned home without being arrested, he thought he was in the clear. But the police called the next day. They knew he had…

Proud, Scared and Conflicted. What the China Protesters Told Me.

Chin@Strategy

They went to their first demonstrations. They chanted their first protest slogans. They had their first encounters with the police. Then they went home, shivering in disbelief at how they had challenged the most powerful authoritarian government in the world and the most iron-fisted leader China has seen in decades. Young Chinese are protesting the country’s harsh “zero-Covid” policy and even urging its top leader, Xi Jinping, to step down. It’s something China hasn’t seen since 1989, when the ruling Communist Party brutally cracked down on the pro-democracy demonstrators, mostly…

‘At the Breaking Point’: Tibetans, Under Lockdown, Make Rare Cries for Help

Chin@Strategy

BEIJING — Infected patients quarantined alongside those who tested negative. No food for hours, despite repeated requests. Lines of buses, loaded with people, waiting late into the night to drop them off at makeshift isolation centers. These are the scenes described by residents of Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, who have been locked down for one month as officials try to contain a coronavirus outbreak. Lockdowns, including of entire cities, have become almost commonplace in China, which remains bent on eliminating the coronavirus even as the rest of the world…

Your Tuesday Briefing: Liz Truss Selected to Lead Britain

Chin@Strategy

Liz Truss is chosen to lead Britain Liz Truss will formally assume the prime minister’s title in a meeting today with Queen Elizabeth II at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. The hawkish foreign secretary will assume power as Britain faces its gravest economic crisis in a generation. Household energy bills are set to spike by 80 percent, and some economists predict that inflation will top 20 percent by early next year. In a speech, she promised a “bold plan to cut taxes,” but many believe Truss will have to announce sweeping…

China Imposes More Covid Lockdowns, Stoking Anxiety

Chin@Strategy

In the hours before the southern Chinese city of Chengdu entered a coronavirus lockdown, Matthew Chen visited four vegetable markets in an attempt to stock up on fresh food. But seemingly the entire city had the same idea, and by the time he got to each place, most of the shelves had been stripped bare, except for hot peppers and fruit, he said. Mr. Chen, a white-collar worker in his 30s, managed to scavenge enough cherry tomatoes, meat and greens for about one day, and since then has been ordering…