A single Chinese woman has begun an appeal in her legal battle for the right to freeze her eggs, a procedure only available in China to married couples. Xu Zaozao took legal action in 2019 after a Beijing hospital refused to freeze her eggs but a Beijing court dismissed her case in July 2022. Her case is widely followed in China, where women’s rights have become an increasingly prominent issue and the falling birthrate is of growing concern. Xu says she wants to freeze her eggs to give herself the…
Tag: Society
China’s censored feminist movement finds solace in Sally Rooney
When the manuscript of Sally Rooney’s Conversations with Friends first arrived in Peng Lun’s inbox, he hesitated. It was 2017, and Peng – who had worked in publishing for a little over a decade – had just started his own house in Shanghai, Archipel Press. He had heard about the clamour from publishers that resulted in a heated auction for the rights to the young Irish author’s first novel and thought it might be worth having it translated into simplified Chinese. He decided to commission readers’ reports from two women.…
Elderly Chinese people protest in Wuhan against medical benefits cuts
Thousands of older people have staged a rally in the rain in central China to protest against significant cuts to their medical benefits, in the latest outburst of public discontent since nationwide protests against Covid curbs gripped the country late last year. Video clips on social media show a large crowd of elderly protesters in raincoats and holding umbrellas gathering outside the Wuhan city government by the Yangtze River on Wednesday, while police officers form a line to stop them from approaching the gates. The location of the rally has…
‘It was all for nothing’: Chinese count cost of Xi’s snap decision to let Covid rip
When Sunny* thinks back to March last year, she laughs ruefully at the ordeal. The 19-year-old Shanghai student spent that month locked in her dormitory, unable to shop for essentials or wash clothes, even banned from showering for two weeks over Covid fears. In April, the entire city locked down. It was the beginning of the chaos of 2022, as local Chinese authorities desperately tried to follow President Xi Jinping’s zero-Covid decree while facing the most virulent strain of the virus yet: Omicron. “Everyone was panicking, no one was ready,”…
Six lifestyle choices to slow memory decline named in 10-year study
A combination of healthy lifestyle choices such as eating well, regularly exercising, playing cards and socialising at least twice a week may help slow the rate of memory decline and reduce the risk of dementia, a decade-long study suggests. Memory is a fundamental function of daily life that continuously declines as people age, impairing quality of life and productivity, and increasing the risk of dementia. Evidence from previous research has been insufficient to evaluate the effect of healthy lifestyle on memory trajectory, but now a study suggests that combining multiple…
Ximei review – Ai Weiwei produces inspiring portrait of Chinese Aids activist
Produced by Ai Weiwei, this is a rousing portrait of Liu Ximei, an astonishingly resilient Aids activist; it also sheds light on a controversial government campaign that accelerated the epidemic in 1990s China. During the first half of the decade, poor farmers were encouraged to donate their blood in exchange for money. Due to a lack of health and safety standards, a staggering number of donors as well as those who received transfusions contracted HIV. In Ximei’s province of Henan, more than 300,000 villagers live with the debilitating effects of…
London council rejects new Chinese embassy amid residents’ safety fears
London councillors have rejected plans for a new Chinese embassy, which would have been the largest diplomatic base in the UK, after residents and advocacy groups raised safety concerns. In a tense meeting, the Tower Hamlets council voted unanimously against the proposed development to move the current embassy to a 2-hectare (5-acre) site opposite the Tower of London. Local residents and advocacy groups, who feared being swept into protests, called the plans into question, saying they would endanger people’s lives. Simon Cheng, the founder of Hongkongers in Britain and a…
‘People want to live’: views from China on the Covid lockdown protests
Protests against China’s zero-Covid policy have continued in cities including Shanghai, Beijing and Chengdu. The protests are a remarkable expression of defiance in a country where this type of public dissent is rare. They often feature people holding up blank sheets of paper, symbolising censorship. Four people in various Chinese cities spoke to the Guardian on condition of anonymity to share their views on the protests. ‘I’ve seen very mixed reactions’ Yun*, living in Shanghai “We were at the protest in the heart of Shanghai from around 2pm [on Sunday]…
Canadian pop star Kris Wu sentenced to 13 years in jail for rape in China
A Beijing court has sentenced the Chinese-born Canadian pop star Kris Wu to 13 years in jail after finding him guilty of crimes including rape. The court in Chaoyang district said investigations showed that from November to December 2020, Wu, also known as Wu Yifan, raped three women. It also found him guilty of the crime of assembling a crowd to engage in sexual promiscuity in July 2018, the court’s official WeChat account said. It said Wu, 32, would be deported, although lawyers in China have said deportations typically take…
Chinese government attempts to boost birth rate with new policies
The Chinese government has pledged to improve pre- and post-natal services to encourage more people to have children and reiterated its intent to “discourage” abortions as it seeks to turn around a declining birth rate. The measures announced by the country’s national health commission include a pledge to make fertility treatments more accessible. For several years authorities have flagged expanding IVF access to single women but it remains available only to married couples. A court challenge by a woman was recently struck down. The commission said it would guide local…