UK’s Labour Party to recognize Uyghur genocide if it wins elections

UPDATED at 9:45 A.M. EDT on 03-31-2023 The United Kingdom’s opposition Labour Party will aim to declare the Chinese government’s treatment of the Uyghurs a genocide if it wins the next general election. Labour Member of Parliament David Lammy, who serves as Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, said he “would act multilaterally with our partners” to get China’s actions recognized as genocide through international courts, he told Politico. “What we’ve seen from China is that they continue to be more internally repressive and obviously there…

Vietnam releases 2 prisoners of conscience before jail terms end

Vietnam granted early release to two prisoners of conscience, each serving a five-year sentence following separate arrests and convictions in 2019 under a law frequently used by authorities to stifle dissent, activists with knowledge of the situation said. The two were convicted of violating Article 117 of the country’s penal code, which criminalizes “making, storing, distributing or disseminating information, documents and items” against the state. Violators can be sentenced to from five to 20 years in prison.  Authorities on Tuesday freed Huynh Thi To Nga, 40, about 10 months earlier…

Yes, China Can Quit Coal. Here’s How.

Advertisement Fifty-three miners remain missing or dead after a vast section of wall collapsed at an open-pit coal mine in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on February 22. The wave of earth and rock – over a third of a kilometer wide by one geologist’s estimate – buried dozens of heavy mining vehicles and their operators in a landslide tens of meters deep. The tragedy shines a spotlight on China’s coal mining sector, where hundreds of coal miners perish each year in accidents. Combined with the toll that coal use…

Report: Chinese State-sponsored Hacking Group Highly Active

Advertisement A Chinese hacking group that is likely state-sponsored and has been linked previously to attacks on U.S. state government computers is still “highly active” and is focusing on a broad range of targets that may be of strategic interest to China’s government and security services, a private American cybersecurity firm said in a new report Thursday. The hacking group, which the report calls RedGolf, shares such close overlap with groups tracked by other security companies under the names APT41 and BARIUM that it is thought they are either the…

China’s Weapon of Choice in Taiwan

Advertisement While China has not given up the possibility of using military operations to resolve the conflict between Taipei and Beijing, it also acknowledges the potential interference from the United States and the high cost of military operations. Instead, Beijing’s preferred policy is to seek unification by hollowing out resistance within Taiwan.  When the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee was setting up its Taiwan Work Office (TWO) in the early 1980s, it chose officials with expertise in united front work and intelligence gathering. Many of them had personal connections or…

North Korea launches anti-divorce campaign, targeting women

North Korea is trying to stop couples from getting divorced by launching an education campaign targeting married women, but residents say the initiative blames women unfairly, sources in the country told Radio Free Asia. The campaign also punishes the parents of divorcing couples by shaming them in public and holds companies responsible should their workforces have high divorce rates. North Korean divorce rates are not publicly available, but at least one source suggested they were rising – and that a key reason for this was the enormous stress that economic…

Chinese nationalists are annoyed about colonial-era place names

At the start of a three-day visit to Moscow on March 20th, China’s president, Xi Jinping, was welcomed by his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, with a feast featuring quail, venison and pavlova. At home, the thoughts of some Chinese nationalists were focused on another Russian city—one famous for its sea cucumbers, a popular Chinese delicacy. In China, the far-eastern Russian city of Vladivostok has been known traditionally as Haishenwai, meaning “sea-cucumber bay”. More to the point, as these patriots point out, it was once ruled by China. Listen to this…

Many wealthy people are considering leaving China

Jack ma, founder of Alibaba, an e-commerce giant, is a symbol of how the ruling Communist Party has humbled the rich. In 2020 he dared publicly to criticise financial regulators. Soon afterwards they spiked the $37bn initial public offering of Ant Group, Alibaba’s fintech affiliate, and investigated Alibaba itself for monopolistic behaviour. A chastened Mr Ma largely vanished from public life. In late 2021 he left China and spent time learning about farming and sustainable food production. Listen to this story.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android. Your…

Joe Biden attempts to defang the Chinese tiger

To buddhist pilgrims, the Tiger Pagoda of Tanzhe Temple is a monument to a miracle. They believe that this stupa, in Beijing’s pine-clad western hills, marks the tomb of a tiger so touched by a monk’s piety that it abjured killing, moved into the temple grounds and lived on meatless gruel. When Chaguan saw the tomb on a recent hike, it struck him as a sadly useful metaphor. That vegetarian tiger could serve as a symbol for the strong-but-unthreatening China that America once sought as a partner, but which now…

Vietnamese court upholds jail terms for couple over YouTube channel content

A Vietnamese man who livestreamed YouTube videos deemed critical of the government and leaders and his spouse lost their appeals trial on Wednesday for prison sentences they received for “abusing democratic freedoms.” In November 2022, a court in Dong Nai province sentenced Nguyen Thai Hung, 50, to a four-year term and his wife, Vu Thi Kim Hoang, 45, to two-and-a-half years for running the “Telling the Truth TV” YouTube channel.  It had nearly 40,000 followers and earned allegedly “illegal profits” of more than 384 million dong, or U.S.$15,500, from advertisements.  Dong…