The U.S. government warned Americans not to travel to China as the death toll from a new coronavirus reached 213 on Friday and the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global health emergency. A new State Department travel advisory raised… Read More ›
With anger rising over the response to the coronavirus outbreak, even some with ties to China’s leaders have called for acknowledging divisions, not papering them over. From the outside, China’s Communist Party appears powerful and effective. It has tightened its… Read More ›
China has confirmed more than 4,500 cases of a new form of coronavirus, with 106 deaths. Nearly all of the fatalities have been in central Hubei province, but the new total includes the first death in Beijing. The Canadian government… Read More ›
The Trump White House has said lots about fake news these past three years. Now it’s going after fake products — counterfeit goods, usually from China — that pretend to be high-priced originals. I started investigating these knockoff goods nearly… Read More ›
Trying to be polite or indirect while not taking no for an answer does not give anyone a right to make trouble. When someone gives a decisive, “No,” decent people accept that answer, then move on somehow. But, China doesn’t… Read More ›
China has announced it is to ban plastic bags from major cities by 2021 and in all cities and towns by 2022. The nation, which is among the world’s largest users of plastic, also plans to stop restaurants giving out… Read More ›
China reported Saturday a jump in the number of people infected with a new virus to 1,287 with 41 deaths, as it expanded its lockdown to an unprecedented 36 million people and rushed to build a prefabricated, 1,000-bed hospital for… Read More ›
A Chinese woman who bragged about cheating airport coronavirus screenings in the outbreak’s epicentre has been tracked down in France. The woman boasted on Chinese site WeChat that she’d been suffering from a fever but took tablets to mask her… Read More ›
North Korea’s communist regime banned all foreign visitors from entering the country on Tuesday as a precaution against the recent outbreak of a new coronavirus in China, according to tourist companies who operate in the country. Beijing-based Koryo Tours told… Read More ›
On Wednesday the Chinese government announced a partial quarantine of Wuhan, the city of 11 million at the center of a deadly coronavirus outbreak, with all major modes of public transit shut down. The severe measure was prompted by growing… Read More ›
Canadian beef producers are optimistic that relief from trade restrictions offered to American farmers in the U.S.-China trade deal could be extended north of the border, clearing the path for more exports to the lucrative Asian market. “Phase One” of… Read More ›
The former president of Interpol has been sentenced to more than a decade in prison. Meng Hongwei, the first Chinese national to assume the presidency of the France-based international law enforcement organization, received his 13 1/2-year sentence for corruption Tuesday… Read More ›
China is engaging in “rapid expansionism”; this is different from the slower-moving modes of Russia and, until Trump, the United States. During Obama, Russia took back Crimea—after that fling Nikita Khrushchev had in giving Crimea to Ukraine when it wasn’t… Read More ›
Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping have established themselves as the world’s most powerful authoritarian leaders in decades. Now it looks like they want to hang on to those roles indefinitely. Putin’s sudden announcement this week of constitutional changes… Read More ›
China has joined the Great Exoskeleton Arms Race. With America and Russia developing exoskeletons—essentially the powered armor suits depicted in science fiction and superhero films like Starship Troopers and Iron Man—it was inevitable that China would follow suit. In October… Read More ›
Chinese leaders stretching back to Deng Xiaoping have often thought in terms of decades. A decade encompasses two of China’s famous five-year plans, and it’s a long-enough period to notice real changes in a country’s trajectory. As it happens, I… Read More ›
Hong Kong authorities barred the head of Human Rights Watch from entering the Chinese territory on Sunday, the advocacy group said. Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch’s executive director, had planned to launch the organization’s annual world report in Hong Kong… Read More ›
German authorities raided the homes and offices of three people suspected of spying for the Chinese government, officials said on Thursday, giving no details about their identities or the nature of the alleged espionage. “This is a preliminary investigation against… Read More ›
China’s southern province of Guangdong will relax the household registration system that restrains internal migration in all its cities except the powerhouses of Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the provincial governor Ma Xingrui announced on Tuesday. The move is part of the… Read More ›
China will not change its position that Taiwan belongs to it, Beijing said on Sunday, after President Tsai Ing-wen won re-election and said she would not submit to China’s threats, as state media warned she was courting disaster. The election… Read More ›
The overwhelming, earth-shattering, landslide re-election victory of Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-Wen sends a shocking message to Beijing: If you plan to take Taiwan, prepare for greater opposition than you got from Hong Kong. But, like the house cat who doesn’t… Read More ›
Remember that Russian carrier-based jet that China copied without permission? Those airplanes are crashing, and Russia doesn’t seem too broken up about it. Though Russia and China are now friends, even holding joint exercises, Russia’s Sputnik News recently trotted out… Read More ›
Tsai Ing-wen was reelected as Taiwan’s president by a landslide Saturday in a victory that signalled strong support for her tough stance against China among voters determined to defend their democratic way of life. Tsai, from the Democratic Progressive Party,… Read More ›
Academic institutions must grapple with the question of when engagement becomes complicity. Shortly before its first-ever applications period was due to close, the Schwarzman Scholars program held an admissions seminar at the prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing. The elite China-based… Read More ›
The Chinese paddlefish, one of the largest freshwater fish to inhabit our planet for over 150 million years, has gone extinct under humanity’s watch, according to new research. The fish, which could grow up to seven metres (23 feet) long… Read More ›
Taiwan’s President Tsai can thank Beijing for its stupidity if she stays in power. This Saturday, voters in Taiwan will choose their next president and the national Legislature. Tsai Ing-wen, the incumbent president who is detested by the Chinese government… Read More ›
Development of China’s C919 single-aisle plane, already at least five years behind schedule, is going slower than expected, a dozen people familiar with the program told Reuters, as the state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation (COMAC) struggles with a range of technical… Read More ›
When the islanders on the windswept Taiwanese archipelago of Matsu go to the polls this Saturday, Lii Wen, the enthusiastic young candidate for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, knows he has little chance of winning a seat. But he still… Read More ›
China has just hurtled past another milestone in its vast high-speed railway expansion plans. As the countdown to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics continues, the new 108-mile high-speed railway line connecting the capital with Olympic host city Zhangjiakou has just… Read More ›
The 2002-2003 SARS epidemic started in southern China and killed more than 700 people in mainland China, Hong Kong and elsewhere. Fears of a SARS recurrence arose this month after a slate of patients were hospitalized with an unexplained viral… Read More ›
The West has been at odds with the Far East for centuries. It began before the Opium Wars, laws and treaties were made and broken, but the issues remain the same old same old. Chinese stare down their noses at… Read More ›
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said on Tuesday she would work closely with Beijing’s top official in the Asian financial hub to get it back on “the right path” after more than six months of pro-democracy protests. The appointment… Read More ›
A picture of China’s first aircraft carrier before it was eventually completed has surfaced on the Chinese internet. The images showed up on Tencent’s microblog and show a rusty, unfinished hulk. The ship, built for the USSR but never completed,… Read More ›
In 1974, farmers digging a well in China’s Shaanxi province stumbled upon fragments of a life-size clay figure crafted in the shape of a battle-ready soldier. Subsequent excavations revealed a stunning, now-iconic archaeological discovery: an army of “terracotta warriors,” each… Read More ›
China’s agriculture ministry said on Monday that it planned to issue biosafety certificates for a domestically grown, genetically modified (GM) soybean crop and two corn crops, in a move towards commercialising GM grain production in the world’s biggest market. China… Read More ›
When one reads enough Chinese naval literature, diagrams of multi-axial cruise missile saturation attacks against aircraft carrier groups may begin to seem normal. However, one particular graphic from the October 2015 issue (p. 32) of the naval journal Naval &… Read More ›
China News 