In a rare encounter, a Vietnamese Politburo member met to engage in dialogue with a dozen intellectuals and artists, including several well-known dissidents who are critical of the ruling Communist Party, attendees told Radio Free Asia. Sunday’s meeting in Saigon, which had been in the works for several months, had been proactively sought by Ho Chi Minh City Party Secretary Nguyen Van Nen, said poet Hoang Thuy Hung, one of the attendees. Vietnam’s 16-member Political Bureau, or Politburo, is the highest body of the Communist Party of Vietnam, and is…
Day: March 31, 2025
China could greatly reduce its reliance on coal. It probably will not
In Shuozhou, a nondescript city of 1.6m people in northern China’s Shanxi province, the veins of the local economy run black with coal. To the north of the city lies one of the largest open-pit mines in the country. Shuozhou’s mines churn out 200m tonnes of the black stuff every year. Lines of lorries carry it to be washed, sorted, then burned in power stations across the country. If China ditched coal in favour of cleaner sources of power, the city would be “finished”, warns Sun Zhigang, a recently retired…
Seniors with HIV: A ticking time bomb for China
In January 2025, a 79-year-old man went viral on social media after testing positive for HIV at a hospital in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong where he was being treated for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Asked when he could have become infected, the man told the Yangcheng Evening News that he had found a lover after his wife died 10 years ago, but had “never used condoms.” News of the case quickly went viral on social media, registering in the list of hot search topics on Sina Weibo. The…
China claims discovery of 100 million-ton oilfield in South China Sea
Updated on March 31, 2025, at 12:30 p.m. TAIPEI, Taiwan – The China National Offshore Oil Corporation, or CNOOC, has discovered an oilfield in the South China Sea with proven reserves exceeding 100 million tons, Chinese state media said on Monday. The oilfield in the eastern South China Sea – the Huizhou 19-6 oilfield – was about 170 kilometers (106 miles) from the city of Shenzhen in southern China’s Guangdong Province, the Xinhua News Agency reported. Test drilling of the oilfield, which has yielded a daily production of 413 barrels…