China

Taiwan said on Friday China's decision to open new air routes that run close to two Taiwanese-controlled islands was a flight safety risk taken without consultation, and said it would demand any aircraft using them be asked to turn around.

Taiwan's government expressed anger in January after China "unilaterally" changed a flight path called M503 close to the sensitive median line in the Taiwan Strait. China claims democratically-governed Taiwan as its own territory.

China's civil aviation regulator said in its statement on Friday those routes were now in operation, adding that from May 16 it would "further optimise" airspace around Fuzhou airport.

It did not elaborate, but that is four days before Taiwan President-elect Lai Ching-te is inaugurated, a man Beijing believes is a dangerous separatist. Lai has repeatedly offered talks with China but has been rebuffed.

A senior Taiwan official familiar with the island's security planning said the flight route announcement was part of a pattern of pre-inauguration pressure from China.

"They want us to cave in, make compromises and change our behaviour," the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media.

Cross posted from: https://feddit.de/post/11244387

Some experts on China's tech industry said the government order on WhatsApp and Threads could be related to a new rule last August that requires all apps available in China to register with the government or risk being removed.

Apple has removed apps from its China app store before.

In 2017, Apple removed The New York Times news app saying it violated local regulations - a move that came amid rising news censorship in the world's second-largest economy. It remains unavailable on Apple's China App Store.

China's rapid urbanisation in recent decades means far more water is now being drawn up to meet people's needs, scientists say. In coastal cities, this subsidence threatens millions of people with flooding as sea levels rise.

China has a long history of dealing with subsiding land, with both Shanghai and Tianjin showing evidence of sinking back in the 1920s. Shanghai has sunk more than 3m over the past century. In more modern times, the country is seeing widespread evidence of subsidence in many of the cities that have expanded rapidly in recent decades.

Over the past five years, China's household debt has surged by 50%, reaching an estimated total of US$11 trillion. This is largely attributed to a sustained housing boom, in which people have borrowed heavily to invest in multiple properties.

In response to the escalating debt crisis, the government has placed debt defaulters on a blacklist and face severe restrictions on their daily activities. Approximately 8.3 million people, representing about 1% of China's working-age adults, find themselves on this list. In case of unpaid debts, authorities seize a person's income to cover the liabilities, leaving them with a meager allowance to meet their daily expenses.

They are also barred from high-speed rail and air travel or participating in leisure activities such as vacations. while some are even banned from employment as civil servants.

Non-compliance with these restrictions can lead to detention by authorities.

Cross posted from: https://feddit.de/post/11208953

Even for Chinese people who live in Canada and the United States, where English is the main language, a mix of habits, cultural affinity, and other factors means that they continue to get most of their information from Chinese-language media, writes a Chinese in the U.S.

Chinese social media platforms are decrying the lawless state of American society non-stop. "Similar videos also turned up on the phones of my family members in China and they’d send them to me in WeChat groups or private messages,"

"I liked to chat on the phone with my family on the way back home from school, and my grandmother would urge me to get home as quickly as possible. In her imagination, nowhere is safe in New York after nightfall. When I talked to relatives on my way to work in the mornings, they warned me to be careful of Black people on the street, who, they cautioned, are “uneducated and savage.”

"In some videos, we also see violence meted out against Black people by US police, like the death by choking of George Floyd, which ignited the Black Lives Matter movement."

In all of these cases, though, the time, location, and source of the clips are never cited. All of them seem to agree that the mere sight of a Black face on camera makes it self-evident that a crime is being committed.

"An elderly gentleman told me he doesn’t usually read the newspaper because 'the characters are too small' and he gets most of his information from WeChat posts and videos. He also doesn’t know how to find new WeChat accounts so he just reads whatever turns up in his groups. Most of the articles he showed me were exaggerated or misleading reports."

"He told me he believes America is becoming more and more unsafe, and he deliberately avoids black people when he sees them on the streets. He said with absolute certainty that, since the Covid-19 pandemic, street crime has been skyrocketing nationwide. When I asked him where I got this information, he said, 'This is what everyone thinks.'”

“Who is everyone?” I asked him.

“Everyone!” he said with absolute certainty.

Cross posted from: https://feddit.de/post/11175769

The former employee of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and whistleblower Emma Reilly alleges that “dangerous ‘favours’” are “being rendered by OHCHR to the Chinese government” and “these favours fall into a broader effort of the Chinese government to instrumentalise the UN to serve its national interests”. Her evidence alleges a “UN cover-up of special favours for the PRC [Peoples Republic of China]”.

Ms Reilly alleges that “during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals” that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the General Assembly who ultimately oversaw the process and had significant influence over the final texts put to the Assembly”. Her evidence alleges that the PRC “imposes a secret conditionality across UN agencies that the monies so provided may not be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan”.

Cross posted from: https://feddit.de/post/11174092

China’s demand for a traditional medicine known as e-jiao is fueling the slaughter of millions of donkeys every year, say animal welfare groups and veterinary experts.

E-jiao, which is made using collagen extracted from donkey hides, is the vital ingredient in food and beauty products believed by many Chinese consumers to enrich the blood, improve the immune system, and prevent diseases.

Reuters spoke to more than a dozen experts, including veterinarians and academics, to examine how demand for e-jiao is rippling across communities in Africa, which rely heavily on the donkey, and how the trade in hide continues to boom despite efforts by some African nations to restrict it.

Here is the source and some photos and videos.

An investigation of five fur farms in China housing foxes, raccoon dogs and mink found a high risk of diseases developing that could jump from animals to humans, said animal protection group Humane Society International who conducted the study at the end of 2023.

The farms in China's northern Hebei and Liaoning provinces each held between 2,000 and 4,000 animals in intensive conditions, including in close proximity to poultry, HSI said.

Alastair MacMillan, a visiting professor at Surrey University's Veterinary School, said the high stocking density of the animals facilitates the rapid spread of viruses on droplets from one to another, and potentially to humans.

"The rapid circulation and mixing of different strains of virus from animal to animal facilitates their adaption to a mammalian host, the development of mutant strains of concern and a greater likelihood of a threat of human infection."

Here is the report (pdf).

In 2014, the People’s Republic of China launched so-called Operation 'Fox Hunt', a year later followed 'Operation Sky Net'. Often under the pretext of fighting corruption and punishing criminal activities, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) used an extensive global network of illegal police stations to pursue dissidents, human rights laywers and activists, and forcibly bring them back to China in grave and systematic violations of human rights.

Topped by the method of persuade to return - a combination of pressure techniques employed on family members and loved ones in China, including collective punishment, as well as direct stalking, harassment and threats delivered to the target abroad by Chinese agents - a new report by Safeguard Defenders, a human rights groups focused on China, lists forced returns from over 120 countries and regions between 2014 and 2023.

The report also describes the various instances of mass handovers as well as mass persuasion, e.g., the mass persuasion of 230,000 individuals to return between April 2021 and July 2022, and the mass handover (e.g., repatriation) of 77 individuals from Fiji in 2017, 6 from Vanuatu in 2019, 88 from Indonesia, 164 from Laos in 2023, as well as over 30,000 individuals from Myanmar between September and December 2023 alone. The handovers in cooperation with counterparts in host countries are particularly relevant as China is still expanding its global policing and judicial cooperation footprint.

Safeguard Defenders also criticizes the "incredibly worrisome" role of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) which closely cooperate with a Chinese Communist Party-agency in the persuasion of dissident.

"A vital part of China’s long-arm policing efforts rest on the cooperation many authorities around the world continue to afford the Chinese authorities," Safeguard Defenders says.

"While some [governments] have woken up to the dire reality of the CCP’s global fugitive hunt, others tacitly close an eye to or willingly assist in their unlawful operations under a recent swathe of - often secretive - police cooperation agreements," the group adds.

Here is the report (pdf).

Children of jailed rights defenders, as young as infants and toddlers, have been detained in psychiatric wards or orphanages, while school-age children have been forced to drop out of school, a new report by the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) reveals.

"Chinese authorities are punishing their families, including young children to penalize human rights defenders, rights lawyers, themselves. Even the Chinese law provides no legal basis for this perverse practice, which is forbidden in international law,” says Renee Xia, Executive Director of CHRD.

While this report focuses on 2023, Chinese authorities have used these tactics for decades. Seeking redress often triggers more police harassment, brutality, and baseless legal prosecutions.

As the Chinese government seeks greater global influence, its unlawful and perverse practice of collective punishment of human rights defenders deserves greater scrutiny. Its blatant violation of human rights and illegal practices should sound the alarm for the international community. While the Chinese legal system has failed to hold any perpetrators accountable, other governments and the United Nations human rights mechanisms should pursue justice for victims and end impunity for those Chinese officials responsible for collective punishment.

Cross posted from: https://feddit.de/post/11116132

In its home market, the Discovery Channel has earned a reputation for never letting reality get in the way of a good story. Once home to respected wildlife documentaries and science specials, the network is better known these days for such colorful titles as Naked and Afraid, Deadliest Catch, American Chopper, and, of course, Shark Week. The network’s volte-face from education to entertainment has even become something of a pop culture punchline.

But what Discovery stands accused of with regards to China is no laughing matter. According to a group of US Congressmen, the channel is “whitewashing genocide” against the Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in far-western Xinjiang. In an open letter last month to the president and CEO of parent company Warner Bros. Discovery, six Republican representatives called World’s Ultimate Frontier — a new co-production between Discovery and CGTN, the international division of state-run broadcaster CCTV — “an obvious work of propaganda on the part of a totalitarian, adversary regime.”

China’s influence in the Pacific is being scrutinised as ally Solomon Islands prepares to hold elections this month, with two candidates indicating they would seek to review a controversial security pact between the two countries.

Ties between China and Solomon Islands have deepened under prime minister Manasseh Sogavare, who is hoping to secure another term in the vote on 17 April. Solomon Islands, one of the poorest countries in the Pacific, relies heavily on partners including Australia and China for development aid and support. Beijing’s assistance ranges from infrastructure development, medical, policing and security support.

Cross posted from: https://feddit.de/post/11109618

Russian Copper Company (RCC) and Chinese firms have avoided taxes and skirted the impact of Western sanctions by trading in new copper wire rod disguised as scrap, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Copper wire rod was shredded in the remote Xinjiang Uygur region by an intermediary to make it hard to distinguish from scrap, the sources said, allowing both exporters and importers to profit from differences in tariffs applied to scrap and new metal, the sources said.

Last week, the Star Media Group (SMG), one of Malaysia’s largest integrated media conglomerates, announced a partnership with China’s Contemporary World magazine, an outlet directly under the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. In a press release on the cooperation that made no mention of the magazine’s government ties, SMG said that “both media companies agreed to collaborate on news sources and explore further cooperation opportunities.”

The tie-up is just the latest example of China’s determined push to enhance its influence across Southeast Asia through media diplomacy, partnerships, journalism outreach programs, and state-led external propaganda initiatives — in many cases without any public transparency whatsoever about the Chinese entities involved.

SMG’s Chan Seng Fatt (陳成發), who stepped into the CEO spot at the group only last month, called the partnership a “golden opportunity” to bridge divides between China and Southeast Asia through what he called “concerted media collaboration.” He also hinted at the complexities in a region where views of China remain mixed. “In the context of China’s efforts in Southeast Asia, we see challenges and opportunities,” he said. “Language barriers, cultural misunderstandings and differing political landscapes pose significant challenges.”

While the event was about cooperation between two media companies, including one of Malaysia’s largest listed media groups, the diplomatic role of the partnership — and its larger framing around China’s official state discourse on information — was the elephant in the room.

Cross posted from: https://feddit.de/post/11081170

"We are handing over such important capability to the net-zero transition to an entity that comes from an authoritarian and hostile state at a time when the European Union and other countries are going in a different direction," says Scottish lawmaker Stewart McDonald, adding this would not be in the UK's economic or energy interests.

Chinese company Mingyang Smart Energy Group was given "priority status" in offshore projects in tbe North Sea.

"This very company that's going to be setting up here in Scotland was declined by our Norwegian neighbours recently for a similar project," McDonald says.

The Glasgow South MP said it came "hot on the heels" of the UK government linking China to recent cyber-attacks on voter data.

He added: "I think the UK government need to explain why a project of this magnitude in an industry that is clearly sensitively strategic has been allowed to go ahead."

Beijing was accused of attempts to access details of MPs critical of the Chinese government, which Mr McDonald said included himself.

A cooperation agreement by the Philippines, the United States and Japan will change the dynamic in the South China Sea and the region, the Philippine president has said, while seeking to assure China it was not a target.

“I think the trilateral agreement is extremely important,” Ferdinand Marcos Jr told a press conference in Washington on Friday, a day after meeting President Joe Biden and the Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida, in the nations’ first trilateral summit.

"It is going to change the dynamic, the dynamic that we see in the region, in Asean in Asia, around the South China Sea,” Marcos said, referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

The three leaders expressed “serious concerns” about China’s “dangerous and aggressive behaviour” in the South China Sea, a conduit for more than $3tn of annual ship-borne commerce, with various maritime disputes between China and other countries.

Since 2021, the Tor Project has been working on a project entitled "Rapid Expansion of Access to the Uncensored Internet through Tor in China, Hong Kong, & Tibet", which aimed at improving the use of Tor in the China region.

In January 2024 the Tor Project contracted Cure53 to audit all the code that was changed or created during this project to uncover vulnerabilities produced through these changes in the software. The organization now reports that all the vulnerabilities that were uncovered have already been mitigated.

Download the full report (pdf).

Cross posted from: https://feddit.de/post/11048575

Study download (pdf)

Chinese leading electric car manufacturer BYD received direct state subsidies of approximately EUR 220 million in 2020, rising to EUR 2.1 billion in 2022. In terms of business revenues, direct subsidies increased from 1.1 percent in 2020 to 3.5 percent in 2022. This is the result of an investigaton by Germany's Kiel Institute For The World Economy.

Additionally, BYD receives significantly more purchase premiums for electric cars in China compared to other domestic manufacturers like GAC or foreign companies producing locally, such as Tesla or VW's joint ventures, the study says.

However, the figures clearly understate the true scale and scope of green technology subsidies in China, ss BYD also benefits from subsidies to battery producers through lower input prices, as well as subsidies to buyers of battery electric vehicles, thus stimulating demand.

China's massive state subsidies are not limited to EV cars. According to a very conservative estimate, industrial subsidies in China amounted to around EUR 221 billion or 1.73% of Chinese GDP in 2019.

The authors urge the European Union to engage in negotiations with the Beijing government amidst the recently initiated anti-subsidy proceeding against imports of electric vehicles from China, aiming to persuade China to withdraw subsidies particularly harmful to the EU. Given China's current macroeconomic weakness, its relative strength in green technology sectors, and its tensions with the US, the authors see a realistic chance of successful negotiations.

Next week, German chancellor is visiting China, accompanied by an induszry delegation.

Cross posted from: https://feddit.de/post/11047589

China is helping Russia undertake its biggest military expansion since Soviet times, ramping up sales of machine tools, microelectronics and other technology that Moscow is using to produce missiles, tanks, aircraft and other weaponry for its war against Ukraine, according to a US assessment.

US officials are hoping the release of the intelligence will encourage European allies to press China, as the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, heads to Beijing this weekend and G7 foreign ministers meet next week in Italy.

Announcing US findings, officials said China was helping Russia in the production of drones, space-based capabilities and machine-tool exports vital for producing ballistic missiles.

China has been the key factor in revitalising Russia’s defense industrial base, “which had otherwise suffered significant setbacks” since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a senior US official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

“Russia is undertaking its most ambitious defense expansion since the Soviet era and on a faster timeline than we believed possible early on in this conflict,” the official said.

Cross posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/13117474

Today it sits as a daily reminder of the broken promises of China-funded infrastructure investments that swept Africa in recent years. Frequent breakdowns, inadequate maintenance funding and operational constraints mean barely one-third of its 41 trains are operational, ferrying 55,000 passengers a day, a fraction of initial projections.

Once bustling and vibrant train stations now exude an air of desolation and neglect, contrasting sharply with the city’s urgent transportation needs for its almost 4 million residents. Inoperable trains are regularly parked at the railway’s garage, awaiting maintenance.

Cross posted from: https://feddit.de/post/11010561

A Portuguese man has become the first European citizen jailed under the China-imposed National Security Law in Hong Kong, a law widely criticised by rights groups.

Joseph John, also known as Wong Kin-chung, holds dual Portuguese and Hong Kong nationality and was previously based in the UK.

He was arrested for posting pro-independence and anti-China content on social media, after returning to Hong Kong to visit family in 2022

In February, he was convicted of "secession" and on Thursday sentenced to five years in jail.

Cross posted from: https://feddit.de/post/11009775

Report download: Tide of injustice: exploitation and illegal fishing on Chinese vessels in the Southwest Indian Ocean

A new report by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) contradicts China’s claims of supporting sustainable development and thriving blue economies in the region. This issue is crucial for EU members, as seafood linked to these vessels may enter key international markets, including Europe.

Of the 44 anglers interviewed for the report, 80% reported shark finning, 100% reported abusive working and living conditions, 96% reported excessive overtime, and 55% reported physical violence. EJF also interviewed 16 fishers who worked on Chinese trawlers in Mozambique, who similarly reported widespread illegalities. 81% of them reported physical abuse, and half of them reported the deliberate capture and/or injury of vulnerable marine megafauna.

Seafood linked to these vessels potentially enters vital international markets, including Europe, the US, Japan, and South Korea. At the time of writing, around 73% of the vessels suspected of human rights abuses and illegal fishing appear on the list of authorised exporters to the EU.

According to the group, its Taipei-based staffer Aleksandra Bielakowska was stopped at the airport by immigration officers. She was detained, questioned and had her belongings searched three times before she was denied entry, said the group, also known by its French acronym RSF.

“This action by the Hong Kong authorities, unprecedented for RSF, marks a new decline in the already poor press freedom climate in the territory,” RSF said in a statement.

Bielakowska was to meet journalists and attend a hearing at the trial of Jimmy Lai, the media tycoon and founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper who is facing national security charges.

Cloudflare-free archived version.

As Beijing increases its repression of ethnic minorities in China to establish Han domination, the Chinese Communist Party is also devising numerous ways to ensure that the overseas media cannot expose this ongoing violation of human rights behind the bamboo curtain.

The Chinese media is highly censored. To project the false image of China as a progressive country, the mandarins of the CCP must prevent all these atrocities from being exposed in newspapers, news agencies and televisions in other countries.

To prevent the filtering out of the real situation in Tibet to other countries, measures like network shutdowns, internet filtering, social media censorship, confiscation of satellite dishes and shortwave radio signal jamming are adopted. The authorities persecute Tibetans who provide journalists with assistance without official permission. A well-known case was of Tashi Wangchuk, Tibetan herder-turned-shopkeeper who in 2018 was sentenced to five years in prison for ‘inciting separatism’ for having talked to a New York Times reporter in Beijing in 2015. “Some of my sources have been prosecuted and sentenced from three to 16 years. A lot of them have been imprisoned,” a Tibetan journalist in exile has been quoted.

Internet filtering and radio jamming help Tibetan news groups reach Tibetan audiences. Frequencies are jammed, and the authorities confiscate satellite dishes. Websites face ‘Disturbed Denial of Service’ attacks, which typically occur around sensitive political anniversaries of Tibetan people.

Cross posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/13083518

Chinese firms can often undercut their Western counterparts for many reasons, including cheaper labor and economies of scale. But they also benefit from very generous state incentives, which help to make foreign rivals uncompetitive.

European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager described China's playbook for dominating green-energy sectors during a speech at Princeton University this week. Noting how China first attracts foreign investment through joint ventures, she said the country was "not always above board" in the way it acquired green technological know-how. China then closed its own market to foreign firms before exporting excess capacity to the rest of the world at low, subsidized prices, she says.

"We should prepared to play hardball with China," says Rolf Langhammer, former vice president of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW-Kiel).. "For electric cars and green technology, the US and EU are the most important foreign markets, and the Chinese need access."