TikTok, Blinken in China, and EU-China tensions
TikTok, Blinken in China, and EU-China tensions
+ Beijing auto show
Welcome back to What’s Happening in China, your weekly update on the latest news and developments from the country.
Whether you are a businessperson, investor, government official, academic, media outlet, or general reader, if you want to stay up-to-date on the latest developments in and related to China, I encourage you to subscribe.
Let’s jump into it.
THROUGH THE LENS
IN FOCUS
“A seat at the table during every crisis”
Beyond ignoring Xi’s clear commitment to China’s rise, embracing the idea of peak China is problematic for additional reasons. First, it is difficult to measure and understand what peak China means in practice. Is it an absolute term or a relative one—and if the latter, relative to what? It is unclear whether the term takes into account U.S. power or Xi’s perception of it. Perhaps China’s leaders are not worried about whether their country is peaking because they believe the gap with the United States will keep closing, even if at a slower pace.
Also, China could peak in one area but advance in others, complicating the calculation. Proponents of the argument that China is now in decline point primarily to its economy. Yet as the economy slows (which is partially by design), China retains other sources of power and influence. The bottom line is that China will remain a global power even as its economy underperforms.
[…]
Instead of projecting the West’s fears and hopes onto China, Western officials must try to understand how China’s leaders perceive their country and their own ambitions. The idea of peak China only confuses the debate in the United States. It leads some to argue that China’s weaknesses are the problem and others to suggest that China’s strengths pose the biggest risks. Each side crafts convoluted policy proposals based on these assumptions. But seeing China through this simple lens ignores the fact that even a stagnant China can cause serious problems for Washington, economically and strategically.
Read: The Delusion of Peak China
XINJIANG
A disappearance in Xinjiang
Financial Times
And yet, for two decades Rahile worked within the system, balancing the pursuit of research as well as it could possibly be done despite the darkening sensibilities and rising paranoia of the party-state. She was fastidious. She made sure her students did not engage with banned books, that they obtained consent for recordings, saw that they cut personal opinions and avoided direct criticisms of government policy from their dissertations.
Her greatest gift as an ethnographer, colleagues say, may have been her ability to “meet people where they are at”. This meant not just putting local, usually poor, worshippers, farmers and craftsmen at ease, but always giving face, due respect, to officials, and seeking the proper permissions for her travels, interviews and recordings.
[…]
And then, early last year, one account emerged which suggested the worst: a lifetime sentence for the crime of “splittism”, endangering state security.
This was confirmed last September by Kamm, who was shown an official document. On Chinese government stationery, signed by a senior Chinese official, was a statement: Rahile Dawut was sentenced to life in prison.
[…]
According to Uyghur Human Rights Project, a US-based rights group, official statistics show more than 578,000 criminal convictions in Xinjiang during the six years from 2017 to 2022. The figure does not include the unknown numbers of people in the region’s internment camps and other forms of arbitrary detention. If accurate, that would indicate an imprisonment rate for Uyghur adults in Xinjiang of about 5,800 per 100,000, more than one in every 17 people. That would mean non-Han people in Xinjiang are imprisoned at more than 50 times the rate of Han people, and that non-Han people imprisoned in Xinjiang account for about one-third of China’s entire prison population.
The state’s obliteration of Islamic culture, everything that Rahile had worked to preserve, has also intensified. An FT analysis of satellite imagery late last year revealed that of the 2,300-plus mosques once featuring Islamic architecture and Arabic features, at least three-quarters have been modified or destroyed since 2018. There are signs Beijing appears increasingly unconcerned with international reputational damage over Xinjiang. Propaganda efforts to showcase the region as “harmonious” and “wondrous” are again ramping up as officials tout the region’s tourism and investment opportunities.
In response to FT questions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing said that China is ruled by law and that policies related to Xinjiang have “deep” public support.
Blinken says genocide in Xinjiang is ongoing in report ahead of China visit
Reuters
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week.
The State Department's annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese counterparts.
In a preface, Blinken said the report "documents ongoing grave human rights abuses in the People's Republic of China (PRC)."
"For example, in Xinjiang, the PRC continues to carry out genocide, crimes against humanity, forced labor, and other human rights violations against predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups," Blinken said in the preface.
The section of Monday's report on China details the detention of more than one million people in camps and prisons and the use of re-education camps in Xinjiang, among other abuses committed against the broader Chinese population.
POLITICS & SOCIETY
COVID-19: How the search for the pandemic's origins turned poisonous
AP
The Chinese government froze meaningful domestic and international efforts to trace the virus from the first weeks of the outbreak, despite statements supporting open scientific inquiry, an Associated Press investigation found. That pattern continues to this day, with labs closed, collaborations shattered, foreign scientists forced out and Chinese researchers barred from leaving the country.
The investigation drew on thousands of pages of undisclosed emails and documents and dozens of interviews that showed the freeze began far earlier than previously known and involved political and scientific infighting in China as much as international finger-pointing.
China’s Leftover Women
ChinaPower Project
In this episode of the ChinaPower Podcast, Dr. Leta Hong Fincher joins us to discuss the legal and social status of women in China. Dr. Fincher, who has written widely on gender issues in the PRC, reviews the history of Chinese marriage and divorce policies with an eye towards China’s contemporary feminist movements. She speaks to how the privatization of housing in the 1990s led to widening gender income gaps and the way women are increasingly discriminated against in the workplace. She highlights, amidst China’s ongoing demographic struggles, the plight of so-called “leftover women,” or sheng nu, who are faced with growing government and societal pressure to marry and start families. Dr. Fincher concludes by discussing the future of feminism in China, emphasizing the resilience and popularity of feminist movements despite the challenges they have faced.
Takes on Xi's Inspections to Chongqing: Why China's Western Region Matters?
On Apr.22, Chinese President Xi paid an inspection tour to Chongqing, the largest direct-administered municipality in China. During his inspection, he held a symposium on boosting the development of China’s western region. This post contains some key takeaways from his symposium and some extra info.
Fare Game: Why China’s Ride-Share Boom Is Leaving Drivers Behind
Sixth Tone
As oversaturation hits the world’s largest ride-hailing market, drivers are struggling to cope with low earnings, long hours, and increased health risks. Despite government efforts to regulate the industry, experts call for a more comprehensive approach.
For China’s Workers, 2024 Is the Year of Staying Put
Sixth Tone
As the job market shifts under their feet, workers now prize stability. The civil service exam — which promises lifetime employment to successful applicants — has set registration records in recent years. And employees like Mei, who might once have jumped ship first and figured out their cover letters later, are increasingly resigning themselves to staying put, at least for the moment.
China Begins to Limit Use of Facial Recognition for Hotel Check-In Amid Privacy Concerns
Caixin
Hotels in Chinese cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hangzhou have been ordered by local authorities to stop scanning guests’ faces for check-in, Caixin has learned, as the government steps up protection of personal data amid growing use of facial recognition technology.
A majority of the hotels contacted by Caixin said that they received notices in late March or early April from local police departments requiring them to let guests check in without using facial recognition, while some said that they had been asked to do so as early as 2023 — after Beijing lifted its “zero-Covid” policy.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to What's Happening in China to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.