From 5h ago NSW rail union pushes ahead with industrial action Sydney commuters are in for a “very messy day” as the NSW rail union pushes ahead with industrial action that will take out 70% of the train fleet, AAP reports. The Rail, Tram and Bus Union has been locked in long-running stoush with the Perrottet government over a new Korean-made Intercity fleet, which it says is unsafe. While the government has signalled it could be prepared to spend $264m to modify the fleet, the union says it has refused…
Day: June 30, 2022
Xi Visits a Changed Hong Kong for Handover Anniversary
Advertisement Chinese leader Xi Jinping arrived Thursday in Hong Kong to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the British handover of a city that his rule has transformed from a global hub known for its political freedoms to one that is much more tightly controlled by the Communist Party. In a staged event carried live on Chinese TV, students and others lined the platform of a high-speed rail station and packed a red carpet to greet the leader making his first trip outside of mainland China in nearly 2 and a…
Getting around covid controls in Shanghai
For two glorious weeks at the beginning of June the residents of central Shanghai could sit in a café, sip a latte and forget about the chaos of April and May. The city’s harsh and shambolic lockdown, aimed at stemming an outbreak of covid-19, was finally over. People were able to move about again. The coffee had never tasted so good. Listen to this story.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android. Your browser does not support the <audio> element. Listen to this story Save time by listening to…
China is improving its human capital. Gradually
In their book “Invisible China”, published in 2020, Scott Rozelle and Natalie Hell of Stanford University tell the dispiriting tale of Wang Tao, who grew up on the edge of Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province. Every year he took weeks off school to help his parents harvest rapeseed and watermelon from their small plot of land. He was a class monitor in middle school and studied diligently for entry into high school (which typically begins at age 15 or 16). But his grades fell a little short and his…
Some Chinese want their country to move closer to communism
In a poor, communist country, the phrase sounded like a truism. But in the early 1980s China’s admission that it was still only in the “initial stage of socialism” was an ideological bombshell. The use of those words meant the country had become “totally freed from the restrictions of orthodox socialist principles”, recalled Zhao Ziyang, who took over as Communist Party chief later that decade and championed the term. It allowed China to introduce capitalism (a stage Marx viewed as essential) and repudiate Maoist madness. Many Chinese were delighted by…
Assimilation: China’s Failed Strategy in Xinjiang
Advertisement The story of the Xinjiang Police Files, which I wrote about in this space last month, deserves continued attention. The files were delivered to an international consortium of media, and then further authenticated, analyzed, and curated by Dr. Adrian Zenz, an expert on the internment campaign targeting Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic minorities in China’s northwest Xinjiang region. Zenz said that the files are irrefutable evidence of what is “most likely the largest incarceration of an ethno-religious minority since the Holocaust… The new evidence really underlines the nature of…
Beijing hits out at Nato strategy for ‘malicious attack’ on China
China has issued a strong rebuke at Nato, calling out what it said was “cold war thinking and ideological bias”, after the western military bloc said Beijing posed “serious challenges” to global stability. Nato allies agreed for the first time to include challenges and threats posed by China into a strategy blueprint in its latest summit in Madrid this week. The alliance’s previous document, issued in 2010, made no mention of China. In its new Strategic Concept, Nato said tackling “systemic challenges posed by the People’s Republic of China to…
China’s President Xi arrives in Hong Kong for handover anniversary
Mrs Lam mentioned nothing about her immediate future plans in her final press meetings – but looking for a new home with space to store piles of cash is probably on her to-do list, our correspondent says. She is currently under US sanctions, which makes her unable to bank her salary, reported to be worth a few hundred thousand dollars per year. BBC