Translator/journalist/editor/writer. Translator of Complex Chinese edition of “Elon Musk” by Walter Isaacson and "Source Code: My Beginnings" by Bill Gates
Under China’s leader, Xi Jinping, Beijing has tried to export its ideas about security to the world in countries like the Solomon Islands, a Pacific nation 3,000 miles away. Where Washington offers treaties that commit American troops to defend U.S. allies against external threats, Beijing offers something different: equipment and tactics for governments to keep order at home.
That pitch has appealed to many authoritarian and weak democratic states in Africa, Southeast Asia and Central Asia that view domestic threats to regime security as an equal, if not bigger, priority than fielding an army.
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“Every year, I learn more about Tiananmen through people, every year I get new pictures, new documents,” Zhou says. “I think it’s pretty clear that the memory of Tiananmen is preserved.”
Although technology has empowered China’s censorship and surveillance regime, it has also allowed activists to reach new audiences, Zhou says. Asked if he’s concerned that the combination of ageing witnesses and CCP pressure could weaken the memories of 1989, Zhou is optimistic: “I’m much less worried than 10 years ago”.
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On June 4, the world marks 37 years since the Chinese Communist Party ordered its troops to attack thousands of peaceful demonstrators in and around Tiananmen Square. Chinese students, workers, and other civilians who lost their lives had gathered to exercise their natural rights and demand democratic reforms and accountability for corruption. We remember their lives and honor their legacy. No amount of censorship can erase the past. Those who sacrificed to uphold their unalienable rights of free expression and peaceful assembly will be vindicated someday.
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❝But FT analysis suggests that the Chinese state’s campaign of oppression against Uyghurs and their culture and identity has in fact entered a new phase.
While many camps have shut, a vast network of prisons and detention centres remains, alongside pervasive surveillance and systems of coercive social control. It shows Xinjiang has the world’s highest prison detention capacity relative to its population size — evidence that authorities continue to rely on mass incarceration.
Researchers and rights groups say repression in the region now extends towards the long-term remaking of Uyghur society. Beijing has expanded labour transfer programmes that move Uyghurs into factory work elsewhere in the country — schemes UN experts say can amount to forced labour.
This places multinational corporations that work in China in a challenging situation, as Beijing is also making it increasingly difficult and dangerous for companies to perform due diligence in their supply chains so they do not target Uyghur rights.
The employment scheme is Beijing’s new priority, says Adrian Zenz, director of China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, a US non-profit. The camp system acted as a “catalyst” for policies including “birth prevention, parent-child separation, boarding schooling . . . and labour transfer”.
What the state orchestrated through the boarding school system amounted to a “dramatic tearing apart of Uyghur society”, Zenz adds. He says children are separated from families at increasingly young ages, while the Uyghur language and cultural practices are heavily restricted.❞
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As the Iran war spurs questions over American military strength, the US last month sought to reassure allies in Asia by staging some of its biggest drills yet to deter China in the Pacific Ocean, including around Taiwan and in the South China Sea.
Yet hidden from view, the risk of a clash is increasing between China and Vietnam. The action is most heated in the Spratly Islands, where Vietnam has emulated Chinese President Xi Jinping in building and fortifying about two dozen artificial islands among a crowded cluster of reefs and shoals.
A Bloomberg News analysis of ship-tracking data from Starboard Maritime Intelligence identified more than 100 Chinese vessels — including at least 45 linked to state-backed entities such as the coast guard and maritime militia, according to Starboard — that passed within 10 nautical miles of Vietnamese-controlled sea features during the past year, nearly double the 57 vessels that did so from May 2022 to April 2023.
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The Trump administration is removing some tariffs on imports from Taiwan to implement parts of a previously agreed trade deal with the US. https://t.co/nUkUVO6rqQ