Tag: Demonstrations, Protests and Riots

Yan Mingfu, Who Tried to Defuse the Tiananmen Powder Keg, Dies at 91

Media Library

Yan Mingfu, the son of a Chinese Communist Party spy who became Mao Zedong’s interpreter and a negotiator who sought to defuse the standoff between the party and student protesters occupying Tiananmen Square in 1989, died on Monday in Beijing. He was 91. His daughter, Yan Lan, confirmed the death in a statement in the Chinese magazine Caixin. She did not specify a cause, but Mr. Yan had endured a succession of illnesses in old age. “Dad passed away peacefully, putting a full stop on a life filled with tumult…

China’s Crackdown on Mosque Domes is Drawing Rare Resistance

Media Library

Walking through Nagu, a small town in the mountains of southwestern China, the signs of a vibrant Muslim community are ubiquitous. Loudspeakers broadcast passages from a Chinese translation of the Quran. Women in head scarves shuttle rowdy children home from school. Arabic script decorates the outside of homes. Towering over it all is the Najiaying Mosque, a white building topped with an emerald dome and four minarets that reach 230 feet into the air. For decades, the mosque has been the pride of the Muslim Hui ethnic minority that lives…

Hong Kong Remembered June 4 Tiananmen Massacre, Until It Couldn’t

Media Library

For decades, Hong Kong was the only place in China where the victims of the 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy activists at Tiananmen Square in Beijing could be publicly mourned in a candlelight vigil. This year, Hong Kong is notable for all the ways it is being made to forget the 1989 massacre. In the days preceding the June 4 anniversary on Sunday, even small shops that displayed items alluding to the crackdown were closely monitored, receiving multiple visits from the police. Over the weekend, thousands of officers patrolled the…

A Hungarian Town Seethes Over a Giant Chinese Battery Plant

Chin@Strategy

The small-town mayor, long a loyal foot soldier for Hungary’s governing party, recently committed what he described as “political suicide,” throwing himself in the path of an enormous $7.8 billion Chinese battery factory project promoted by his dissent-intolerant prime minister, Viktor Orban. “It is like lying in front of a steamroller,” Zoltan Timar, the mayor of Mikepercs, said of his decision to side with residents opposed to the project, which his Fidesz party championed. “I just hope it won’t roll over me too soon.” The factory, which would be the…

A Year of Russia’s War on Ukraine Is Marked by Protests and Defiance

Chin@Strategy

KYIV, Ukraine — President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine marked the anniversary of the Russian invasion on Friday with a show of defiance, as anti-Kremlin protests took place around the world and the United States made a significant commitment of new weaponry to the country. Even as he and his allies braced for a prolonged war, Mr. Zelensky held a marathon news conference in Kyiv, the capital, to rally international support, declaring that Ukraine and the allies supplying it with weapons and other aid would prevail “if we stay as one strong fist…

Thousands of Chinese Retirees Protest Government Cuts to Benefits

Chin@Strategy

WUHAN, China — Thousands of retirees confronted local officials and the police outside a popular park in the central Chinese city of Wuhan to demand the repeal of recent cuts in government-provided medical insurance for seniors. The protest on Wednesday, the second in Wuhan in a week, was the latest sign of strain on the finances of China’s local governments, which are responsible for covering much of the cost of everything from health care to heating homes. China’s “zero Covid” policies, dictated by Beijing over the past three years, saddled…

In Hong Kong, 47 Democracy Leaders on Trial for Security Charges

Chin@Strategy

The political candidates represented the vanguard of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. Numbering in the dozens, they had planned to run for the city’s legislature in 2020, after months of turbulent protests calling for greater freedom from China. By the time the election was held, more than a year later, none of the candidates could run. Most were in jail, where many still languish today, charged with subversion in the largest case yet involving the national security law Beijing imposed on the city in 2020. Their arrests laid bare the lengths…

China’s Mad Dash Into a Strategic Island Nation Breeds Resentment

Chin@Strategy

Down a dirt road outside the Solomon Islands’ capital city, past Chinese construction projects and shops where Chinese merchants sell snacks, a tribal chief tried to explain what it feels like to have a rising superpower suddenly take an interest in a poor, forgotten place desperate for development. “At first,” said the chief, Peter Kosemu, 50, as he sat in the shade on Guadalcanal, the largest of the Solomon Islands, “most people just wanted to see what was going on.” He and many others have watched China rush headlong into…

China Reports Nearly 60,000 Covid Deaths Since Lifting Restrictions

Chin@Strategy

China said on Saturday that it had recorded nearly 60,000 fatalities from the coronavirus in the month since the country lifted its strict “zero Covid” policy and accelerated an outbreak that is believed to have infected millions of people. It was the first time China had disclosed a significant amount of Covid-related deaths since the pandemic began. Until Saturday, it had reported a total of only 5,241 Covid-related deaths since the start of the pandemic. China has faced mounting criticism from other countries and from the World Health Organization for…

How Twitter Bots Drowned Out Posts About Protests in China

Chin@Strategy

Twitter and its new owner, Elon Musk, have recently vowed to crack down on bots. But the flood of spam for Chinese users in recent weeks has underscored the challenges the company faces in policing fraudulent and inauthentic activity, especially in foreign languages that have traditionally been more loosely policed by large American social media platforms. For many Chinese who turned to the platform as demonstrations against Covid-19 restrictions had grown political and widespread — more so than any protests there in decades — the experience of using the app…