The United States has unleashed a volley of actions to censure China’s treatment of the Uyghur minority, with lawmakers voting to curb trade and issuing new sanctions on Beijing. The United States has been ramping up pressure on China amid a crop of disputes, with president Joe Biden’s administration a day earlier targeting producers of painkillers that have contributed to America’s addiction crisis. The US Senate unanimously voted to make the United States the first country to ban virtually all imports from China’s northwestern Xinjiang region over concerns of the…
Day: December 16, 2021
U.S. Cracks Down on Firms Said to Aid China’s Repression of Minorities
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration said on Thursday that it would put limits on doing business with a group of Chinese companies and institutions it says are involved in misusing biotechnology to surveil and repress Muslim minorities in China and advancing Beijing’s military programs. In announcing one set of the moves, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said China was employing biotechnology and medical innovation “to pursue control over its people and its repression of members of ethnic and religious minority groups.” The administration said those efforts included the use of biometric…
Congress Passes Ban on Goods From China’s Xinjiang Region
WASHINGTON — The Senate voted unanimously on Thursday to approve legislation that would ban the import of a wide array of products made in China’s Xinjiang region in a drive to prevent companies from sourcing goods produced through forced labor by persecuted Muslim minorities. Its passage was a victory for supporters of an aggressive human rights measure that faced a fierce corporate lobbying campaign from businesses that argued it was too onerous and would disrupt global supply chains. The vote sent the measure to President Biden’s desk, where he was…
US importers to face ‘crazy hard’ hurdles once bill targeting Xinjiang forced labour becomes law
Chinese President Xi Jinping is seen on a billboard with the slogan, “Administer Xinjiang according to law, unite and stabilize the territory, culturally moisturize the territory, enrich the people and rejuvenate the territory, and build the territory for a long term,” in Yarkent County in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in March 2021. Photo: AP South China Morning Post
What’s Behind China’s Crackdown on Celebrities?
Advertisement For fans of Chinese celebrities, the summer of 2021 was a rough one. On August 18, Kris Wu, a Canadian Chinese actor and singer who was a former member of the popular K-pop group Exo, was arrested and charged with sexual assault. Days later, the government fined Chinese young actress Zheng Shuang $299 million for tax evasion. In addition, in late August, Zhao Wei, one of China’s most well-known actresses since the late 1990s, disappeared. Overnight, her social media accounts, fan sites, and her films and television shows all…
China’s #MeToo Victims Face Abuse, Payback for Going Public
Advertisement Human resources and upper management wouldn’t deal with her accusation of sexual assault, a former employee of Alibaba said. So she went into the busy cafeteria at the Chinese e-commerce giant’s headquarters and screamed out her plight. Now she’s facing online harassment, accusations of lying from the wives of the two men she accused, and a defamation lawsuit from a Alibaba vice president who was forced to resign. And, she revealed recently, the company fired her. Women in China often face such troubles if they choose to speak publicly…
PRC Perspectives on Subnational Diplomacy in China-US Relations
Advertisement In 1985, the small farming town of Muscatine in Iowa hosted a young Chinese delegation seeking to learn about agricultural techniques. The group’s leader, then Communist Party secretary of a rural county in Iowa’s sister state of Hebei province, forged deep connections with the local community and was awarded a golden key by then Muscatine mayor. Twenty-seven years later, in 2012, Xi Jinping, the previous delegation leader, who had become vice president of the People’s Republic of China, announced his decision to take a trip back to Iowa in…
Hu Xijin, Chief of China’s Global Times, Will Retire
During the presidential administration of Donald J. Trump, Mr. Hu would often work late, firing off rejoinders at the U.S. president’s tweets. Other Chinese diplomats and state media journalists followed, taking to American social media platforms blocked in China to hit back at Beijing’s critics. In the process, they have at times stirred international controversy and inflamed relations with other countries. Growing up in Beijing, Mr. Hu was not always the picture of party loyalty. As a Russian literature graduate student in 1989, he joined the crowds of pro-democracy protesters…
Outspoken editor of Chinese state tabloid Global Times retires
A Chinese state tabloid editor who became a leading voice of strident nationalism with millions of social media followers has announced his retirement. A self-described former pro-democracy protester turned outspoken newspaper editor, Hu Xijin helped usher in a new era of brash, assertive nationalism under the president, Xi Jinping. In a social media post on Thursday, Hu said he had stepped down as editor-in-chief of the Global Times, which is owned by the ruling Communist party’s flagship newspaper the People’s Daily. The 61-year-old wrote to his 24 million followers on…
Japan PM will not attend Beijing Winter Olympics opening ceremony
Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has said he will not attend the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, but it is not clear if the country will join a US-led diplomatic boycott of the Games over human rights abuses. Speaking in parliament on Thursday, Kishida said: “I have no plans at this point to attend” and did not clarify if Japan would send any officials to the event, amid reports that it was unlikely to snub the hosts altogether. Kishida has said only that he will make a…