Tag: Discrimination

China Told Women to Have Babies, but Its Population Shrank Again

Media Library

China’s ruling Communist Party is facing a national emergency. To fix it, the party wants more women to more have babies. It has offered them sweeteners, like cheaper housing, tax benefits and cash. It has also invoked patriotism, calling on them to be “good wives and mothers.” The efforts aren’t working. Chinese women have been shunning marriage and babies at such a rapid pace that China’s population in 2023 shrank for the second straight year, accelerating the government’s sense of crisis over the country’s rapidly aging population and its economic…

Asian American Officials Cite Unfair Scrutiny and Lost Jobs in China Spy Tensions

Media Library

When Thomas Wong set foot in the United States Embassy in Beijing this summer for a new diplomatic posting, it was vindication after years of battling the State Department over a perceived intelligence threat — himself. Diplomatic Security officers had informed him when he joined the foreign service more than a decade ago that they were banning him from working in China. In a letter, he said, they wrongly cited the vague potential for undue “foreign preference” and suggested he could be vulnerable to “foreign influence.” Mr. Wong had become…

Antisemitism Surges in China Online and in State Media

Media Library

Hu Xijin, an influential commentator and a former editor in chief of Global Times, a Communist Party newspaper, responded to hawkish statements from an Israeli minister directed at Hezbollah, the powerful militia in Lebanon, writing on Chinese social media: “Oh, calm down, Israel. I’m worried you’ll wipe the Earth out of the solar system.” At times, the anti-Israel comments took on a nationalist tone. In a widely viewed post, an influencer with 2.9 million followers on the Chinese social media platform Weibo said that he would opt to call Hamas…

Chinese Women Who Defy ‘Beauty Duty’ With Buzz-Cuts and Bare Faces

Media Library

Legend Zhu was the conventional ideal of Chinese beauty. Tall with shoulder-length hair, she led her university’s modeling team, whose members were often called upon to strut down runways at campus fashion shows wearing body-hugging dresses and dramatic eye makeup. A recent college graduate, Ms. Zhu has attracted attention for her appearance once again, but in a far different way. Over the summer, she took to Xiaohongshu, a Chinese social media platform known for its lifestyle influencers, to post a selfie with buzz-cut hair and a cosmetic-free face. “From a…

A Chinese Journalist Gave #MeToo Victims a Voice. Now She’s on Trial.

Media Library

After two years in detention, a Chinese journalist who spoke up against sexual harassment stood trial on subversion charges on Friday along with a labor rights activist, the latest example of Beijing’s intensified crackdown on civil society. Huang Xueqin, an independent journalist who was once a prominent voice in China’s #MeToo movement, and her friend Wang Jianbing, the activist, were taken away by the police in September 2021 and later charged with inciting subversion of state power. Their trial was held at the Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court in southern China.…

What I’m Reading: Eclectic Edition

Media Library

Some weeks, as I try to chase down a particular idea or understand a particular event, my reading lists have clear themes: what to read to understand X; three books on Y. This is … not one of those weeks. Instead, I’ve been feeling intellectual entropy, pinging from one topic to another. I’ve decided to lean into it, letting my brain range freely and trusting that it will take me somewhere interesting. I’m pleased with the results: a fascinating new book on China, a new political science paper that explains…

In China, More Single Female Home Buyers, Resisting Sexist Norms

Media Library

After she signed the contract for her new apartment in southern China, Guo Miaomiao, 32, ran through the mental list of what she would get to enjoy as a homeowner. A leather couch in the living room. A pumpkin pendant lamp that she’d been eyeing online. And, most important, a way to defy expectations in China about the role that a woman should play in a marriage. “I’ve seen too many cases, including among my relatives and friends, where the husband buys the house, and the minute the couple argues,…

Chinese Workers Confront the Curse of 35

Media Library

When Sean Liang turned 30, he started thinking of the Curse of 35 — the widespread belief in China that white-collar workers like him confront unavoidable job insecurity after they hit that age. In the eyes of employers, the Curse goes, they’re more expensive than new graduates and not as willing to work overtime. Mr. Liang, now 38, is a technology support professional turned personal trainer. He has been unemployed for much of the past three years, partly because of the pandemic and China’s sagging economy. But he believes the…

Hong Kong Wants More Tourists, but Mostly ‘Good Quality’ Ones, Please

Media Library

One by one the tour buses descended on the blue collar neighborhood in Hong Kong known as To Kwa Wan — literally translated as Potato Bay — unloading throngs of travelers from mainland China outside large restaurants where a quick lunch awaited them inside. Outfitted in white, red and orange ball caps to denote which tour they belonged to, the visitors crowded the sidewalks, smoked cigarettes under a “No Smoking” sign and bumped into the glass storefront of a real estate office where Nicky Lam, a property agent, was rolling…

America’s Covid Test Requirement For Chinese Is a Farce

Chin@Strategy

Some public health experts have been quick to call out the new policy as useless in addressing the spread of the highly contagious coronavirus. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy, whose country has in place a similar testing requirement, called for the European Union to follow Italy’s lead in adopting the same policy but was denied by most member states on grounds of inefficacy. Indeed, without universal testing, contact tracing and masking mandates, selective reinforcement by geographic origin succeeds only in singling out the predominantly Chinese travelers and reviving rampant…