Day: February 11, 2022

Feb 12th 2022 THE TERM “raucous” could not be applied to the crowd at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics—perhaps because many of them were officials, attending as a reward for good conduct. So on the few occasions that spectators at the Bird’s Nest stadium did show emotion on the cold, clear evening of February 4th, their reactions were worth studying. Chaguan was among dozens of Beijing-based foreign reporters invited to the ceremony. He sat in a section of the stadium separated by fences and guards from the…

Feb 12th 2022 Hong Kong YIM SUET MUI, an 83-year-old Hong Konger, waited almost a year before getting a vaccination against covid-19. “If I die, I die,” was her attitude. “I am old.” Such fatalism came easily in the territory until recently because it had done well at keeping the virus out. Controlled borders, ubiquitous mask-wearing and strict quarantining meant months have sometimes passed without a locally transmitted infection. But one side-effect was the elderly not wanting (or not bothering) to be jabbed. Only 30% of over-80s and 60% of…

Feb 12th 2022 IN THE YEAR before the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, campuses in China buzzed with debate about how to make the country more liberal. To some intellectuals the West offered a model. In the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev had shown how a start could be made. Amid this ferment, in August 1988, a bespectacled political scientist arrived in America for half a year of study, initially at the University of Iowa. He found much to criticise but also plenty to admire in America: its universities, its innovation…

Advertisement For a country determined to keep out the virus that first emerged within its borders, bringing in more than 15,000 people from all corners of the world was a serious gamble. It appears to be working. One week into the 17-day event, China seems to be meeting its formidable COVID-19 Olympic challenge with a so-called “bubble” that allows Beijing Games participants to skip quarantine but tightly restricts their movement so they don’t come in contact with the general population. There have been 490 confirmed cases — many of them…

Advertisement For the past couple of decades, safeguarding food security has been a critical priority for the Chinese central government. Beijing has sought to strengthen its focus on food security through increased agricultural production and diversification of imports, and President Xi Jinping’s recent comments signal continued concerns at the top about China’s food security. Ahead of the 20th National Party Congress this year and the release of the No. 1 policy document, there are already several hints regarding what the Chinese central authorities could prioritize in terms of food security…

On January 30, PLA Navy personnel fasten tractors on a ship delivering relief supplies to Tonga. Weighing approximately 1,400 tonnes, the latest supplies include mobile homes, tractors, electricity generators, water pumps, water purifiers, food and medical supplies. Photo: Xinhua South China Morning Post