Day: September 10, 2021

Sep 11th 2021 IN EARLY JANUARY the Communist Party published a five-year plan for the development of “socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics”. Most of the document is domestically focused, but one section is devoted to foreign matters. It calls on China to help shape international law, to turn itself into the first choice of jurisdiction when resolving cross-border disputes and to promote the use of Chinese law abroad. The party’s goal, the plan says, is to promote “a fair and reasonable” international system of rules. But in the…

Sep 11th 2021 THE CALL from China came in the early morning. Desmond Shum, a former tycoon now living in the West, heard the voice of his ex-wife, Duan Weihong, for the first time in four years. Ms Duan vanished in Beijing in September 2017, shortly after Communist Party anti-corruption investigators came for a patron of hers, a young member of the Politburo once seen as a successor to the supreme leader, President Xi Jinping. Listen to this story Your browser does not support the <audio> element. Enjoy more audio…

Sep 11th 2021 UNTIL RECENTLY Li Guangman, the retired editor of an obscure state-owned newspaper who writes leftist screeds online for a few fellow travellers, was unknown to the general public. That changed on August 29th, when the country’s biggest state and party media outlets circulated an incendiary blog post by Mr Li to their huge audiences, causing many to assume his views had official support. This prompted such a stir that a prominent state-media figure—Hu Xijin, editor of Global Times, a jingoistic party tabloid—felt compelled to post a scathing…

Sep 11th 2021 WITH FOREIGN competitors such as Facebook and Google blocked, domestic tech giants have for two decades dominated the Chinese market. The Communist Party has kept a firm grip on politics, but the tech firms have had considerable leeway in their business activities. “It was a Wild West within an authoritarian system,” says Martin Chorzempa of the Peterson Institute, an American think-tank. Listen to this story Your browser does not support the <audio> element. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android. Now the Communist Party is…

Ms Chow, a human rights lawyer, was previously arrested earlier this year and charged with promoting unauthorised assembly, after she posted on social media encouraging people to commemorate the Tiananmen Square anniversary. She was later released on bail, however this time, bail has been denied. BBC

Advertisement President Joe Biden spoke with China’s Xi Jinping on Thursday amid growing frustration on the American side that high-level engagement between the two leaders’ top advisers has been largely unfruitful in the early going of the Biden presidency. Biden initiated the call with Xi, the second between the two leaders since Biden took office. It comes at a moment when there is no shortage of thorny issues between the two nations, including cybersecurity breaches originating from China, Beijing’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and what the White House has…

A woman wearing a face mask to help curb the spread of the coronavirus sits near a screen showing China and U.S. flags as she listens to a speech by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the Lanting Forum on bringing China-U.S. relations back to the right track, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs office in Beijing on Monday, Feb. 22, 2021. Foreign Minister Wang Yi called on the U.S. Monday to lift restrictions on trade and people-to-people contacts while ceasing what Beijing considers unwarranted interference in the areas of…

Police in eastern China detained the owner of a cosmetic surgery clinic after a video of her beating a client and making threats emerged online. The incident occurred when the client complained about a failed eye surgery to the local market supervision authority and sought a refund from Xiyue Cosmetic Surgery clinic in Jinan, in eastern China’s Shandong province, Red Star News reported. In the video, the owner of the clinic, identified only by the surname Liu, and two staff snatched the mobile phone of the client, surnamed An, when…

Advertisement China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi today embarked on a fresh rota of diplomatic visits that will take him to three Southeast Asian nations, two of which recently hosted high-ranking U.S. officials including Vice President Kamala Harris. Wang Yi’s weeklong trip began today in Vietnam, and will be followed by stops in Cambodia and Singapore. Wang will then fly on to South Korea on Tuesday and Wednesday, where he will hold talks with his local counterpart, Chung Eui-yong. Not much of Wang’s agenda is clear, but for what it’s worth,…