Month: July 2021

Jul 15th 2021 TO FREE-THINKING users of WeChat, a social-media platform, it was a depressingly familiar event. Late on July 6th, those who tried to browse accounts run by LGBT societies at several universities in China were greeted with messages saying the forums, which had been used to publicise events such as webinars and film nights, had been closed for violating unspecified rules. The accounts had probably offended the government, which has little regard for the rights of sexual minorities and even less for freedom of speech. Listen to this…

Jul 15th 2021 BEIJING AND SHANGHAI THE BEIJING International Book Fair, which takes place in August, gives the better-known view of China’s publishing industry: state-controlled and gargantuan. The organiser, China Publishing Group, owns 40 of the 580 government-run firms that dominate the country’s $15bn book-publishing market—second in size only to America’s. But another book jamboree, held one month earlier in the capital, shows a less familiar aspect. The abC Art Book Fair, which this year ran for three days from July 9th, is all that the other is not: independent,…

Advertisement Fed up with work stress, Guo Jianlong quit a newspaper job in Beijing and moved to China’s mountain southwest to “lie flat.” Guo joined a small but visible handful of Chinese urban professionals who are rattling the ruling Communist Party by rejecting grueling careers for a “low-desire life.” That is clashing with the party’s message of success and consumerism as it celebrates the 100th anniversary of its founding. Guo, 44, became a freelance writer in Dali, a town in Yunnan province known for its traditional architecture and picturesque scenery.…

Advertisement Internationally, universities and commercial enterprises serve as primary vehicles for innovation. China’s innovation strategy adheres to a similar concept, employing universities and companies to serve as the foundation for the country’s innovation. When placed in the context of China’s military-civil fusion strategy, however, Beijing’s drive to innovate using its civilian universities and enterprises is in lockstep with its drive to accelerate innovation for its defense sector. Although focused domestically, the innovation strategy’s interdependence with China’s military-civil fusion system enables it to leverage the global research and development network of…

Advertisement As the United States approaches the final deadline to withdraw its last troops from Afghanistan, the Taliban are rapidly overrunning districts and gaining control of large swaths of the country. The group is doing so faster than anyone had imagined, to the point that the U.S. military has reportedly moved its forecasted timeline for a possible collapse of the civilian government to only six months after its pullout. Indeed, with June being the deadliest month in Afghanistan in two decades, the former Afghan President Hamid Karzai now openly calls…

Jul 10th 2021 XICHANG IN THE HENGDUAN mountains of Sichuan province, swollen brown rivers and trees heavy with ripe mangoes do not evoke digital wizardry. Yet until recently, there were buildings here with rack upon rack of specialised computers. They were often near hydropower plants that supplied them with electricity from dams. They needed lots of power. Their machines were used for “mining”, a process that involves validating transactions conducted in bitcoin and other digital currencies by solving cryptographic puzzles. In return, they received newly minted coins. The buildings were…

Advertisement Following Western sanctions directed against it regarding alleged human rights issues, China unveiled its new anti-sanctions legislation on July 10 to much pomp and circumstance. The international community was quick to notice the promulgation, with widespread speculation ensuing that this could greatly damage the business environment for multinational corporations and other entities that have a large market presence within China. Domestically, the news was met with the support of several media outlets, portraying the bill’s passage as an indication that China would no longer allow this type of Western…

Advertisement Starting from the early hours on July 9, 2015, police across China set out in teams to conduct a series of coordinated raids. Organized by the Ministry of Public Security, these police nabbed people from hotel rooms in the middle of the night. They shut off the electricity at the homes of their targets. They prevented people from boarding flights. Who were the targets of these secretive actions? Drug lords? Corrupt officials? No: The targets were 300 human rights lawyers and activists associated with them. Many of these lawyers…

Advertisement China has emerged as the world’s largest provider of COVID-19 vaccines, having sold or donated over 200 million doses of its Sinopharm and Sinovac jabs, enough to fully vaccinate over 100 million people. By contrast, the next leading exporter, the EU, has sent just 82.3 million doses abroad. China is by far the leading provider of vaccines to the developing world, where countries have struggled to access any inoculation doses at all. What does that mean for the 15 countries around the world that recognize Taiwan – and thus…

Jul 8th 2021 FIVE OR SIX years ago, when many Chinese still associated American culture with novelty and fun, Halloween was big business in Caoxian. This rural county claims to be China’s largest source of cheap costumes for children’s parties and school concerts as well as for dramatic galas that are sometimes staged in Chinese workplaces, from small factories to government ministries. Not long ago, Caoxian’s entrepreneurs could live for a year on one month’s sales of pumpkin costumes, witches’ robes and other Halloween paraphernalia, says Ren Yafeng, a local…