Tag: Politics and Government

Master Hsing Yun, Monk Who Spread Buddhism in China, Dies at 95

Chin@Strategy

The Venerable Master Hsing Yun, a Buddhist monk who built a global network of temples that extended to mainland China, putting him at the vanguard of popularizing Buddhism in a country whose government had long been hostile to religion, died on Feb. 5 in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. He was 95. His death, at the Fo Guang Shan Monastery, was announced by his organization, Fo Guang Shan. No cause was given. Master Hsing Yun was criticized for his political ties, especially for his support of China’s authoritarian leader, President Xi Jinping. But…

China, Still Trying to Play Down Balloon, Finds It’s Getting Harder to Do

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BEIJING — Since the spy balloon saga started, China has tried to play down the incident and prevent it from further inflaming relations with the United States. But as American alarm and accusations have mounted, that strategy is increasingly coming under strain — forcing China into an awkward, at times self-contradictory position. Beijing has continued to maintain that the United States is overreacting to what China called a civilian vessel gathering mainly meteorological data, though the US says it has found evidence of surveillance equipment. But as Washington has begun…

China Tries to Play Down Balloon Dispute With Censorship and Memes

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On Chinese social media, jokes about the suspected spy balloon have been making the rounds. People quipped that the vessel was a misunderstood attempt at wishing Americans a happy Lantern Festival, the Chinese holiday this past Sunday. Others compared it to a glutinous rice ball, a traditional food eaten during the celebrations. The wisecracking was, in part, what happens on social media anywhere in the world: current events transformed to memes to attract likes and follows. But it also dovetailed with signs of a broader government strategy to downplay an…

China’s Balloon Dispute Aims Attention at Xi’s Leadership

Chin@Strategy

The Chinese balloon that bumbled its way across the United States has launched a thousand questions about its real intent. But it is also focusing the world’s attention on the prospect that the communications and control within Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s government and his vaunted security apparatus may be less coherent — or even less functional — than the image he so confidently projects. The stakes today are high. Relations between Washington and Beijing have frayed, and competition between the two sides has intensified, fueling fears that the wrong move…

The 47 Pro-Democracy Figures in Hong Kong’s Largest National Security Trial

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Forty-seven pro-democracy figures in Hong Kong have been accused of a conspiracy to commit subversion in a landmark political case. Many of the defendants have been in jail for nearly two years while awaiting trial. The case highlights the sweeping power of a national security law China imposed to tighten its grip on the city after massive anti-government protests. These are the politicians, academics and activists who are now facing prison sentences. Benny Tai, 58, was a professor of law at the University of Hong Kong. Benny Tai, 58 Joshua…

China and the U.S. Are Wooing Indonesia, and Beijing Has the Edge

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When the U.S. defense secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, visited Indonesia in November, he pressed his counterpart there about a deal to buy 36 American fighter jets. He left without an agreement. Just days before, the same Indonesian official, Prabowo Subianto, met with China’s defense minister, and the two countries pledged to resume joint military exercises. Located across the southern edge of the South China Sea, Indonesia, the resource-laden nation with a fast-growing trillion-dollar economy and a large population, is a big prize in the geopolitical battle between Washington and…

China’s Covid Tsunami Recedes, Bringing Relief, Grief and Anxiety

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When China abruptly abandoned “zero Covid,” accelerating an onslaught of infections and deaths, many feared a prolonged tide rippling from cities into villages. Now, two months later, the worst seems to have passed, and the government is eager to shift attention to economic recovery. Doctors who were mobilized across China to treat a rush of Covid patients say in phone interviews that the number of patients they are now seeing has fallen. Towns and villages that had hunkered down under the surge of infections and funerals are stirring to life.…

Golf Course or Housing? A Patch of Green Divides Hong Kong

Chin@Strategy

On an autumn afternoon at the Hong Kong Golf Club, hundreds of dogs — pugs, Pomeranians, Shiba Inus — strolled the verdant grounds with their owners in tow, enjoying rare access to the range that charges new members a $2 million entry fee. But these impeccable greens, in the northern reaches of Hong Kong, have become an unlikely battleground. The Hong Kong Golf Club has been fighting a government proposal to carve out less than one-fifth of its 172 acres of land and redevelop it for public housing. The open…

There’s Been a Revolution in How China Is Governed

Chin@Strategy

Produced by ‘The Ezra Klein Show’ There are few stories that are more crucial to the world’s future than what’s happening in China. Take any of the most important issues of our time — climate change, geopolitics, the global economy, advanced technologies — and China is at the center of them. American politics itself has increasingly come to revolve around competition with China. In other words, what happens in China doesn’t stay in China — it reverberates through the global economy, the American political system and the international order. And…

U.S. Drops Case Against Police Officer It Had Called an ‘Insider Threat’

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In September 2020, when federal authorities charged Baimadajie Angwang, a Marine Corps veteran and New York Police Department officer, with acting as an illegal agent of China, the head of New York’s F.B.I. office called him “the definition of an insider threat.” The government has quietly changed its mind. On Thursday, in a brief and subdued hearing in a Brooklyn courtroom, a federal judge granted prosecutors’ request to dismiss the charges against Officer Angwang. The swift unraveling of the case — which had been hailed as a signature example of…