Day: June 19, 2023

Axe-Wielding Man Attacks Diners at Chinese Restaurants in New Zealand

Media Library

wellington, New Zealand —  A man with an axe attacked random diners at three neighboring Chinese restaurants in New Zealand, wounding four people, police and witnesses said. Police said the man began the attack at about 9 p.m. Monday in the north Auckland suburb of Albany. Police arrested a 24-year-old suspect at the scene and charged him with wounding, with the intention of causing grievous bodily harm. The man, a Chinese national, made a brief court appearance Tuesday. Police did not immediately offer a motive for the attack but said…

China’s Central Bank Cuts Loan Prime Rates

Media Library

China’s central bank cut key interest rates on Tuesday for loans issued by the state-controlled banking system, in the clearest sign yet of mounting concern in the Chinese government and corporate sector that the country’s economy is stalling. The interest rate cut was small — a tenth of a percentage point for the country’s benchmark one-year and five-year interest rates for loans. But because almost all of the country’s corporate lending and mortgages are linked to the two rates, the reductions could have some effect on the overall pace of…

Li Cunxin retiring from Queensland Ballet due to ‘serious health concerns’

Media Library

Li Cunxin, the renowned ballet dancer and author of bestselling memoir Mao’s Last Dancer, is retiring as the artistic director of Queensland Ballet due to ill health. On Tuesday, the Queensland Ballet confirmed the 62-year-old had been diagnosed with a heart condition and “has been troubled by serious health concerns since 2022”. He recently experienced “complications” and is retiring in order to recuperate. Li’s wife and fellow dancer Mary is being treated for cancer, and will also retire at the end of 2023 from her roles as ballet mistress and…

China cuts mortgage rate to prop up economy. Is bigger policy loosening close?

Media Library

Advertisement “While the cuts won’t make much difference on their own, they are set to be followed by wider policy easing,” economists at Capital Economics said on Tuesday. The LPR has been considered China’s de facto benchmark funding cost since 2019. The rate is decided by a group of 18 banks and is reported in the form of a spread over the interest rate of the central bank’s medium-term lending facility. On Friday, China’s State Council announced plans for “more powerful” economic packages to expand effective demand, strengthen the real…

Chinese investigators admit to smelling a rat in college canteen food scandal

Media Library

Officials in eastern China have revoked the license of a Nanchang university canteen after admitting that a sodden, toothed and bewhiskered lump found in a student’s food was a rat’s head after all, following an earlier claim by the school that it was part of a duck. A provincial level inquiry into the grisly object found by a student at the Jiangxi Industry Polytechnic College in the provincial capital upturned the school’s claim, which it had backed up with a written “statement” from the student involved. Food quality has long…

INTERVIEWS: Hong Kongers overseas keep alive their struggle for freedom and democracy

Media Library

Four years after millions of Hong Kongers took to the streets in peaceful mass protests against plans to allow the extradition of alleged criminal suspects to mainland China, the city is a very different place. Since Beijing imposed a national security law banning public opposition and dissent in the city, blaming “hostile foreign forces” for the protests, hundreds of thousands have voted with their feet amid plummeting human rights rankings, shrinking press freedom and widespread government propaganda in schools. Some fled to the United Kingdom on the British National Overseas…

China’s ‘trinket town’ at heart of push for renminbi trade

Media Library

In the Chinese city of Yiwu, home to the world’s largest wholesale market for small manufactured goods, socks exporter John Zhu is heartened by the rising number of Russian traders willing to settle their bills in renminbi.  “Russia’s break-up with the west leaves the country no choice but to rely on the renminbi to keep its economy afloat,” said Zhu, noting that clients in Moscow sent renminbi payments via WeChat, the Chinese social media app. “We are a beneficiary of the trend.” With its 75,000 stores, Yiwu has been nicknamed…

Blinken Meets Xi as China and the U.S. Try to Ease Tensions

Media Library

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken met with Xi Jinping, China’s leader, on Monday in Beijing, as the two governments sought to pull relations out of a deep chill that has raised global concerns about the growing risk of a conflict between them. The 35-minute meeting, which capped a two-day visit by Mr. Blinken, sent a signal, at least for now, that the United States and China do not want their relationship to be defined by open hostility, and that they recognize that their rivalry and their diplomatic efforts carry…

New Chinese Premier Makes First Foreign Trip to Europe as Part of Beijing’s Outreach

Media Library

berlin —  Chinese Premier Li Qiang has started a visit to Germany and France that comes as Europe seeks to balance concerns over economic dependence on China and about its stance toward Ukraine and Taiwan, with a desire to engage Beijing on issues such as climate change. Li, on his first trip abroad since taking office, was received by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Monday. He and a large delegation of Chinese ministers will meet with Chancellor Olaf Scholz and their German counterparts on Tuesday, the seventh time the two…

How China’s leader Xi Jinping is resetting his agenda with a greater focus on ‘bread and butter’ policies

Media Library

Instead, there is a renewed emphasis on completing projects such as the Xiongan New Area project, which aims to relocate key institutions such as universities and state-owned enterprises from Beijing to a site about 100km (60 miles) from the capital; a controversial waste sorting scheme; and his “toilet revolution”, a project to build more public lavatories in rural areas. Nis Grünberg, a China analyst with the Berlin-based think tank Mercator Institute for China Studies, said these projects were intended to be pilots for social development, which he called the “bread…