This week, the first iPhone 14s rolled off Apple’s newest production line in Chennai, India. I understand why that doesn’t seem like huge news. The company has been assembling phones in India for some time, all of which serve the large domestic market. But it’s an important milestone, marking the first time Apple has produced a new iPhone outside of China in the same year it was released. It is also an important step in one of Apple’s most sensitive projects: to decouple its fortunes from those of Sino-American relations.…
Month: September 2022
Can Hong Kong Recover as a Global Metropolis After Pandemic Barriers?
HONG KONG — Luxury storefronts have been replaced by pop-up shops selling masks. Whole floors of skyscrapers are deserted. Streets once crammed with locals and visitors jostling for space are quiet. This is “Asia’s World City,” Hong Kong’s self-appointed title, after more than two years under some of the world’s toughest pandemic rules. The city now wants to reclaim that cosmopolitan status by taking its biggest step toward living with Covid-19: scrapping a crushing quarantine mandate that at one point required 21 days in a designated hotel and easing restrictions…
Containing China’s Maritime Power: A Question of Capability and Intent
Advertisement Capability and intent are the two fundamental lenses that can best predict risk and conflict. While there is ample space for misjudgment on the part of two adversaries, capability is much easier to evaluate than intent. In foreign policy, China’s rise has gone through a number of iterations, each marked by a rhetoric of intent and suggestions about its capability. The 12-character Chinese aphorism quoted by Deng Xiaoping – “Hide your brightness, bide your time” – is long dead. The late Chinese leader was fond of quoting the famous…
Return to Dust, Chinese hit film about rural hardships, disappears from streaming platforms
A popular Chinese film depicting a love story amid the hardships of life in rural China has been removed from all streaming services just weeks after its release, and discussion of it censored on social media. Return to Dust had been widely praised by audiences for its realistic and moving depiction of rural life in China. For the same reason it had also drawn criticism from nationalistic voices accusing it of portraying China in a negative light. The sudden disappearance of the film, which premiered at the Berlin international film…
Terrawatch: why is sea level rising faster along China’s coast?
Sea level along the Chinese coast is rising faster than the global average, with some regions experiencing an increase of nearly 5mm a year, according to tide gauge and satellite data. A new study investigates what is causing the localised rise, and identifies which communities are most vulnerable. Global heating is causing sea level rise around the world, with the average rate now 3.6mm a year (compared with 1.4mm a year for most of the 20th century). Oceans are interconnected and water sloshes between them, but the rate of sea…
Biden’s summit with Pacific leaders is a direct response to China, but the US should tread carefully | Gerard Finin and Terence Wesley-Smith
This week, the White House will host its first-ever summit with Pacific Islands leaders. The Pacific spans nearly a third of the globe and is home to 16 island nations. In geostrategic terms, the region is more important today than any time since the second world war. The summit is a direct response to China’s growing influence in a region where western strategic interests have long gone unchallenged. The significance of this development is amplified by persistent whispers that China’s navy seeks permanent access to Pacific port facilities. Yet forceful…
Apple shifts some iPhone 14 production from China to India
Apple has begun making iPhone 14s in India, as it moves some production away from China for the first time against a backdrop of Chinese Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns and geopolitical tensions between the US and the country’s communist government. A production line in Chennai has begun operation, assembling the iPhone 14 for the domestic Indian market. The move, which marks the first time the company has assembled iPhones outside of China in the same year they were released, is part of a plan to disentangle its manufacturing operations from the…
Meta takes down ‘influence operations’ run by China and Russia
Facebook’s parent company, Meta, has said it has removed a pair of “influence operations” run by China and Russia, which aimed to sway views on the US elections and the war in Ukraine. The Russian network, the largest the company has disrupted since the war began, targeted audiences across Europe and the UK, and incorporated a “sprawling network” of websites impersonating news websites including the Guardian, according to Meta. “It presented an unusual combination of sophistication and brute force,” said Meta’s Ben Nimmo and David Agranovich in a blogpost announcing…
Meta Removes Chinese Effort to Influence U.S. Elections
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said on Tuesday that it had discovered and taken down what it described as the first targeted Chinese campaign to interfere in U.S. politics ahead of the midterm elections in November. Unlike the Russian efforts over the last two presidential elections, however, the Chinese campaign appeared limited in scope — and clumsy at times. The fake posts began appearing on Facebook and Instagram, as well as on Twitter, in November 2021, using profile pictures of men in formal attire but the names…
Typhoon Noru Aims for Vietnam After Hitting the Philippines
Typhoon Noru, a powerful storm that hit the Philippines this week, was moving west across the South China Sea toward central Vietnam on Tuesday. Noru was forecast to make landfall in or near the city of Danang, one of the largest in Vietnam, by Wednesday. Among the places in its expected path was Hoi An, an ancient trading port and UNESCO World Heritage site south of Danang. More than 800,000 people in Danang and elsewhere in central Vietnam had been evacuated as of Tuesday evening local time, The Associated Press…