Apr 16th 2022 BEIJING READING THE news backwards has long been a useful skill in China, where officials often obfuscate. Recently it has seemed like a matter of survival for some. Take the residents of Beijing, the capital, who are girding themselves for a covid-19 lockdown and all the hardship that might entail. When the city’s officials announced on April 11th that there was more than enough food for everyone, people assumed the opposite. “Understood, hurry and go shopping now,” a cynic wrote online. Listen to this story.Enjoy more audio…
Day: April 15, 2022
Shanghai’s Isolation Facilities Have Prompted a Backlash
When Ms. Cheng first arrived at the exhibition center, it felt vast, cold and empty, she said in a phone interview. Ms. Cheng, who is a student in her early 20s, also wrote about her experience on Chinese social media. The fluorescent lights were glaring but she tried to get some rest. She woke up the next morning to find her hall suddenly crammed with people. There was no tap for running water and no showers, Ms. Cheng said, so each day she and others would crowd around several fresh…
Taiwanese Lee Ming-che Freed From Detention in China
Advertisement Taiwanese human rights advocate and NGO worker Lee Ming-che was freed earlier this week, returning to Taiwan by plane on April 15. This ended five years of detention in China for Lee, who crossed to the mainland from Macau in March 2017 and was subsequently detained by authorities. Lee was detained on charges of “subverting state power” and is thought to be the first Taiwanese detained on such charges. At the time, his detention was thought of in the context of laws passed by the Chinese government regulating foreign…
The CCP’s Ukraine War Propaganda
Advertisement China’s massive information control apparatus is typically focused on distorting the information that Chinese citizens are able to access about their own country, with foreign affairs relegated to a secondary level of importance. Yet over the past seven weeks, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership’s apparent decision to side with Russian President Vladimir Putin in his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has fueled a full-blown campaign to shape public opinion and internet chatter about events unfolding thousands of miles away. Within the deep toolbox of controls available to the CCP…
Why China Isn’t Backing Away From Alignment With Russia
Advertisement China claims to be neutral in Russia’s war in Ukraine, but this neutrality is easy to see through: Beijing refuses to criticize Russia’s violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and it blames the United States and NATO for inciting the war. So far, the “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Coordination for A New Era” between Russia and China, concluded in 2019 and re-affirmed during the most recent bilateral summit on February 4, has held fast throughout the war. But does this partnership have “no limits,” as Presidents Xi and…
Will China’s zero-Covid policy bring the world’s factory grinding to a halt?
A top Huawei executive has broken ranks to warn that China’s stringent zero-Covid policy may trigger “massive losses” for the tech industry, putting the country’s economy as well as the global supply chain at greater risk. “If Shanghai cannot resume production by May, all of the tech and industrial players who have supply chains in the area will come to a complete halt, especially the automotive industry,” Richard Yu Chengdong, head of Huawei’s consumer and auto division said in a WeChat post. “That will pose severe consequences and massive losses…
Faced With a Changed Europe, China Sticks to an Old Script
When European leaders recently pressed China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, to distance himself from Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, he doggedly stuck to prepared remarks for the video summit, shutting down any opening for their demands. Speaking from the grandiose Great Hall of the People, he declared that China, as it had for years, welcomed the European Union as a pillar of an emerging multipolar world. But Mr. Xi also made clear that cajoling China about Russia was not the kind of assertiveness that he wanted. Their talks were…
Shanghai residents forced from homes clash with police over Covid policy
Video footage shared on social media have shown residents of Shanghai scuffling with hazmat-suited police who were forcing them to surrender their homes for coronavirus quarantine facilities, in a sign of rising discontent in the city. Shanghai, a megacity with a population of 25 million and China’s key financial hub, has been experiencing the country’s biggest outbreak since Covid-19 was first reported in Wuhan over two years ago. The outbreak has prompted criticism of local authorities, and is proving a major test of Beijing’s commitment to its stringent zero-Covid policy.…