China-Philippines clash, Li Qiang’s three-nation tour, and Xi's call for greater loyalty in the military
+ China could start building world’s biggest particle collider in 2027
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THROUGH THE LENS
IN FOCUS
I. Nothing to See Here
In recent weeks, a television drama, “To the Wonder,” about the love between a Han Chinese writer and a Kazakh man, has grabbed China’s attention, dominating social media and sparking a Xinjiang tourism boom.
The show is part of a ramped-up effort to showcase Xinjiang as a land of beauty and wide-open steppes rather than a dangerous backwater inhabited by potential terrorists. The strategy has proven successful, especially among young, urban Chinese looking for escape from their hectic lives.
“To the Wonder” is one of the most popular drama series this year on the Chinese internet and the state broadcaster, attracting more than 100 million viewers online within a week of its release in early May. The head of tourism in the small Xinjiang town of Altay, where the show is set, said bookings there have increased 370% since the show began.
The show, made with state funding and heavily promoted by official media, is based on a popular memoir published in 2010 by Li Juan, about her family’s hardships among Kazakh nomads in northern Xinjiang. The director, Teng Congcong, is known for work with a focus on women and told local media she saw potential in Li’s book for another female portrait.
[…]
In 2023, the National Radio and Television Administration selected the show for state funding. One of the criteria was that projects must “tell the China story well.”
The show, co-produced by the state broadcaster and video platform iQiyi, also highlights a new business model for Chinese authorities, with local officials tapping into the popularity of dramas filmed in their regions to promote tourism.
The radio and television administration has encouraged platforms to use algorithms to promote the shows. “Positive energy should generate massive traffic,” it has said.
Although the promotion has mostly targeted young Chinese, the show was included in Canneseries, an international television festival held annually in Cannes, France, and is airing in Kazakhstan this month. On social-media platform X, which is blocked in China, the Xinjiang official account has promoted the show in English-language tweets, saying it represents the “freedom, grandeur and beauty of northern Xinjiang.”
[…]
Authorities are trying to sell a more “docile and lovable” image of China’s frontier regions, said Daria Impiombato, an analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a Canberra-backed think tank, who co-wrote a report on how Chinese authorities have begun to enlist women as “frontier influencers” in propaganda efforts around troubled regions such as Xinjiang and Tibet.
Xinjiang’s propaganda department plans to spend 308 million yuan, or roughly $43 million, on culture tourism and communications and media this year, more than 60% of its total budgeted spending and 27% more than it spent on such items in 2020.
Boosting tourism helps the Chinese government bring Xinjiang into the mainstream, making it just like any other place in China, said Impiombato.
Read: From Xinjiang With Love: China Show Tries to Give Region a Rosier Image
II. “I am still trying to find ways to remind people“
[…] when you relax a little bit, a lot of sentiments from the Cultural Revolution will come back, including the use of irrational and violent language to attack people, as well as prejudice and discrimination against private enterprise.
It’s important that the party has completely repudiated the Cultural Revolution. But I find it rather sad that it has also banned the study of the Cultural Revolution, making it a forbidden zone.
As a result, many people of the next generations simply do not know what the Cultural Revolution was about.
So even though I no longer have much room to speak out, I am still trying to find ways to remind people.
In 2011, I published an open letter to the legal community of Chongqing, criticising the “Chongqing model” implemented by [then Chongqing party chief] Bo Xilai, arguing that the “red culture movement” he had launched had brought back the feelings of the Cultural Revolution, and that the “Chongqing gang trials” had made the courts and the procuratorate practically useless. All this gave me the impression of a repeat of the Cultural Revolution.
In 2012, I published another article saying that, looking at Bo’s case and the changes in Chongqing before the 18th Party Congress, I thought the collapse of the “Chongqing model” had given us some “optimistic inspiration”.
But I did not at all expect the direction China has taken since then.
In terms of political reform, I think the last window for China was when Deng Xiaoping was in power, the mid- to late 1980s, but the transition did not happen, and it became even more difficult afterwards.
The communists of Deng’s generation believed that economic development would inevitably bring about a change in the political system.
However, the course of history has shown a paradoxical situation in which a certain degree of economic development has proved the superiority of the existing political system. The absence of political reform has also led to widespread corruption, with interest groups becoming more motivated to maintain their privileges, which has ultimately led to a more serious dilemma.
Read: In the name of the law: scholar He Weifang argues his case for remembering China’s past
III. Lust for Durian
Last year, the value of durian exports from Southeast Asia to China was $6.7 billion, a twelvefold increase from $550 million in 2017. China buys virtually all of the world’s exported durians, according to United Nations data. The biggest exporting country by far is Thailand; Malaysia and Vietnam are the other top sellers.
[…]
Farmers in Southeast Asian durian orchards say they can’t recall anything like the China craze.
The surge in durian exports is a measure of the power of Chinese consumers in the global economy, even though, by other measures, the mainland economy is struggling. When an increasingly wealthy country of 1.4 billion people gets a taste for something, entire regions of Asia are reshaped to meet the demand.
In Vietnam, state news media reported last month that farmers were cutting down coffee plants to make room for durian. The acreage of durian orchards in Thailand has doubled over the past decade. In Malaysia, jungles in the hills outside Raub are being razed and terraced to make way for plantations that will cater to China’s lust for the fruit.
Read: China’s Lust for Durian Is Creating Fortunes in Southeast Asia
XINJIANG
Beijing’s Crackdown on Islam Is Coming for Kids
Foreign Policy
On March 15, the third day of this year’s Islamic holy month of Ramadan, Muslims living in Yuxi, a city in China’s Yunnan province, woke up to an unusual message circulating on their WeChat threads. The prefectural Bureau of Ethnic and Religious Affairs had issued an “urgent public notice” authorizing surveillance of fasting among their schoolchildren.
“The Party Committee, governments, education, and sports bureaus of all levels should investigate the participation of minors in fasting and other religious activities,” the notice stated. It further required these organs to “adhere comprehensively to the principle of separation between education and religion, and strengthen the education and guidance of teachers, students, and the majority of young people.”
Yuxi is home to a significant population of a state-recognized ethnic Muslim minority nationality called the Hui.
[…]
Xi’s signature dream of national rejuvenation has little room for the cultural particularism of Soviet times, wherein minorities’ customs and languages were recognized. Instead, the modern CCP increasingly promotes the assimilation of all ethnic minorities into a single core as defined by Han Chinese culture.
So far, the campaign has centered on removing halal food signs written in Arabic and modifying the “foreign architecture” of mosques, actions that were justified as preventing the spread of the so-called trends of “Saudization and Arabization” among the Hui. Now that the majority of mosques have been beheaded of their domes and minarets, the notice in Yuxi brings into focus an even more critical dimension of the campaign: profiling Hui Muslim youth in the name of separation between religion and education.
The techniques being used now on the Hui were first honed by Beijing on Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities inhabiting the northwestern region of Xinjiang. Unprecedented securitization of the region over the past decade has led to the development of a high-tech surveillance state that monitors virtually every aspect of Muslim behavior. Leaked police files show people being incarcerated en masse for fasting during Ramadan, wearing a headscarf, or reciting the Quran. Beijing claims that the measures—dubbed “the People’s War on Terror”—are effective in combating terrorism and integrating Xinjiang with the rest of China.
The notice in Yuxi suggests that China’s treatment of its “model Muslim minority” is increasingly taking a Xinjiang turn. Reports show that so-called “convenient police stations,” installed throughout Xinjiang every few hundred feet from each other to monitor behavior, are spreading to neighboring provinces of Gansu and Qinghai. Meanwhile, party cadres from the province of Ningxia—another Hui stronghold—are traveling to the region to receive “anti-terrorism training.”
China has renamed hundreds of Uyghur villages and towns, say human rights groups
The Guardian
Hundreds of Uyghur villages and towns have been renamed by Chinese authorities to remove religious or cultural references, with many replaced by names reflecting Communist party ideology, a report has found.
Research published on Wednesday by Human Rights Watch and the Norway-based organisation Uyghur Hjelp documents about 630 communities that have been renamed in this way by the government, mostly during the height of a crackdown on Uyghurs that several governments and human rights bodies have called a genocide.
The new names removing religious, historical or cultural references are among thousands of otherwise benign name changes between 2009 and 2023. According to the two organisations that conducted the research, the apparently political changes, which mostly occurred in 2017-19, targeted three broad categories. Any mentions of religion or Uyghur cultural practices were removed, including terms such as hoja, a title for a Sufi religious teacher, which was removed from at least 25 village names; haniqa, a type of Sufi religious building taken from 10 village names; and mazar, meaning shrine, which was removed from at least 41 village names.
POLITICS & SOCIETY
Chinese Communist Party warns members not to criticise policy ahead of major economic policy meeting
SCMP
The Chinese Communist Party’s watchdog has issued a stern reminder to members not to criticise party policy ahead of a major party meeting that is likely to set the direction of economic policy for the next five years.
But analysts warned this effort to “unify thought”, to use the party’s own jargon, amid challenging economic conditions may further damage Beijing’s credibility and erode business confidence if it is seen as “unreasonably trying to control the storyline”.
The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection published a special report via state news agency Xinhua on Wednesday that warned against “openly speaking ill of the party on major issues” as part of the watchdog’s latest internal disciplinary drive.
The report said “public statements that contradict the decisions of the Central Committee are absolutely not allowed”.
It added that public comments that “irresponsibly discuss” the party’s main policies, “disrupt the thoughts” and undermine the unity of party members, warning that those who hinder policy execution must be “dealt with strictly”.
Explaining its rationale, the report said the party leadership “fully listened” to different voices before it made a decision, and once it had decided all party members “must resolutely implement” that policy.
It also said there were internal party procedures that should be used to address any problems that may arise.
The disciplinary message came weeks ahead of the third plenum – a key meeting of the party’s Central Committee next month that will set the country’s economic strategy for the coming five years.
Xi Calls for Greater Loyalty and Discipline in China’s Military
Bloomberg
Chinese President Xi Jinping called for “deep reflection” from the country’s armed forces at a specially convened meeting aimed at ensuring loyalty and rooting out corruption in the world’s largest military.
“The barrel of a gun should always be in the hands of those who are loyal to the party,” state broadcaster CCTV quoted the Chinese leader as saying. He also said the “soil that breeds corruption” should be eradicated by improving the policing of graft and supervision of senior cadres, according to the report.
Xi was speaking at a so-called military political work conference in the city of Yan’an, a stronghold of the Communist Party in central China’s Shaanxi province during the civil war.
Xi used a similar meeting in 2014 to assert his authority over the People’s Liberation Army shortly after coming to power. That event was intended to echo a gathering in 1929 when Mao Zedong maneuvered to bring the armed forces under Communist Party control. In 2015, Xi kicked off a major modernization of the military aimed at improving its combat readiness.
Underscoring the importance of the gathering in 2014, the PLA Daily earlier this month credited Xi with saving the armed forces from problems including graft, a weakening of leadership and lack of discipline.
China's Xi says army faces 'deep-seated' problems in anti-corruption drive
Reuters
"Cadres at all levels, especially senior cadres, must show up, and have the courage to put aside their prestige and expose their shortcomings. They must deeply self-reflect ... make earnest rectifications, resolve problems at the root of their thinking."
The political tests currently faced by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) are "intricate and complex" and the national situation, party situation and military situation are "all undergoing complex and profound changes", Xi said in a keynote speech to military cadres, including Zhang Youxia and He Weidong, the second and third-in-command of the PLA.
Xi also vowed to "enrich the toolbox for punishing new types of corruption and hidden corruption" and to strengthen the supervision of senior cadres.
Xi Jinping visits Mao’s caves
RFA
President Xi Jinping has led top military brass on a pilgrimage of caves that were a key revolutionary base for the late supreme leader Mao Zedong, state media reported, a move analysts said was aimed at strengthening grip over the People's Liberation Army.
The cave complex of Yan'an, in northeast China, where Mao spent the formative years of the Chinese Communist Party leadership during the war with Japan, has become a symbol of ideological purity in China, and has been described by commentators as one of the "holy sites" of the Chinese revolution.
Chinese military focusing on nuclear-powered subs with eye on US Navy: analysts
SCMP
China’s increased focus on nuclear-powered submarines is aimed at boosting long-distance naval combat and deterrence power amid growing risks of high-seas confrontation with the US, according to military analysts.
The People’s Liberation Army has for the first time publicly acknowledged a strategic shift away from conventional submarines, as Beijing pushes to build a modernised military by 2027.
“The current development of China’s submarine fleet is dual-capable, both nuclear-powered and conventional, with a focus on nuclear capabilities,” Wen Xuexing, a member of a PLA Navy submarine unit, told state broadcaster CCTV.
“Our nuclear submarines are routinely patrolling at sea,” Wen told a CCTV programme to mark the 70th anniversary of the navy’s submarine force on Wednesday.
Report: China's Military AI Roadblocks
Center for Security and Emerging Technology
China’s leadership believes that artificial intelligence will play a central role in future wars. However, the author's comprehensive review of dozens of Chinese-language journal articles about AI and warfare reveals that Chinese defense experts claim that Beijing is facing several technological challenges that may hinder its ability to capitalize on the advantages provided by military AI. This report outlines these perceived barriers and identifies several technologies that Chinese experts believe may help the country develop and deploy military AI-enabled systems.
Death toll from southern China floods reaches 47
Al Jazeera
At least 47 people have died as downpours in southern China’s Guangdong province caused catastrophic flooding and landslides, according to state media.
State broadcaster CCTV said on Friday that another 38 people were confirmed dead in Meizhou city, adding to the nine who were previously known to have died in the same location.
Heavy rains hit between Sunday and Tuesday, causing landslides and floods in the region. As the death toll mounted, authorities warned on Friday of more flooding ahead in other parts of the country.
EU diplomats visit schools, religious sites and prison in Tibet in dialogue with China on human rights
The Irish Times
Senior EU diplomats have visited schools, religious sites and a prison in Tibet as part of a dialogue with China about human rights.
The visit, which took place over three days last week in Nyingchi and the Tibetan capital Lhasa, was organised by the Chinese authorities but the EU diplomats specified where they wished to go.
“The programme included visits to boarding schools, municipalities, cultural and religious sites, relocated Tibetan families as well as to a prison. The side visit reflected the majority of the EU’s requests, except for meetings with individual prisoners,” the European External Action Service (EEAS) said in a statement.
“The short and dense programme provided an opportunity to gain a certain understanding of the reality on the ground and challenges in the Tibet Autonomous Region. Following the visit the EU put forward several recommendations to ensure full bilingual education, the preservation of the cultural heritage, identity and fundamental freedoms of the Tibetan people.”
Why is China targeting #MeToo activists?
DW
The decline of China's civil society landscape has been a long and challenging process for local activists.
In 2015, over 300 lawyers and human rights defenders were arrested in a nationwide sweep called the "709 crackdown." The name derives from the date it began: July 9. The arrests targeted legal professionals and activists advocating for human rights and the rule of law.
Over the past decade, Beijing has also restricted overseas NGOs from operating in the country and suppressed feminist and LGBTQ+ movements by arresting leading advocates.
Chinese Women Shoulder Lion’s Share of Unpaid Domestic Labor, Study Shows
Caixin
Women in China take care of far more of the unpaid domestic work, according to a study released Monday, indicating a significant disparity between genders in terms of how Chinese households divide family responsibilities.
In 2021, Chinese women spent an average of 2.94 hours on unpaid labor per day, 2.39 times more than men, the study said. Meanwhile, 77.2% of Chinese women did some kind of unpaid labor each day, surpassing men by 32.9 percentage points.
“The Police’s Strength Is Limited, but the People’s Strength Is Boundless”
ChinaFile
In recent years, as Beijing has encouraged the “masses” to take a greater role in public safety, vigilante groups—and their close cousins, “safety promotion associations”—have sprung up across the country, working with the police to conduct traffic stops, mediate disputes, or even “catch [suspects] on the spot.” Indeed, China’s police are likely in need of some help. Despite perceptions to the contrary, the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s) police forces are undersized and underfunded, and they must contend with a level of crime much higher than official statistics suggest. Volunteers likely serve as a bolster for law enforcement, taking on patrol duties and handling low-level incidents in the police’s stead. Keeping such cases out of police hands may also keep them off local crime registers, helping local officials make it seem like crime has dropped on their watch. But more than anything, these volunteers serve as another corps of eyes and ears to help the state enforce its vision of a “stable” society—one in which discontented citizens present no threat to the Party, their complaints having either been promptly addressed or promptly silenced.
China’s Spate of Violence Prompts Outburst of Economic Anxiety
Bloomberg
Chinese authorities are aware of the link between economic changes and rises in violence. The Guangdong Police College analyzed 140 high-profile cases of violent attacks from 2000 to 2021, concluding last year that most of the culprits didn’t have a prior criminal record.
Instead, China’s rapid economic transformation had put some segments of society at more of a disadvantage, leading them to vent their frustration through violence, according to the research. Due to tight controls of guns and explosives in China, knifing and car-ramming incidents have become more common.
Despite severe crime falling, Chinese authorities listed the prevention of extreme violence as a top priority for law enforcement in a work plan last year. The country is entering a time with a “large amount of social conflict and disputes that are difficult to discover, prevent and handle,” China’s security czar Chen Wenqing stressed in December.
[…]
Mental health issues that built during China’s three years of Covid isolation, are being compounded by economic pressures including high youth unemployment, said Lynette Ong, professor of political science at the University of Toronto, who’s also a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis.
“Acts of random violence could be seen as expression of pent-up social grievances in a high-pressured society,” she added.
A Third of Chinese Regions Grew Populations in 2023
Yicai
Around a third of China's mainland regions expanded their populations last year despite the nation’s falling birth rate and aging society.
Only 11 of the nation's provincial-level administrative regions added residents, up by 1.6 million people in total, according to the latest official data. Zhejiang and Guangdong made up more than 60 percent of the increase, followed by the expanding regions of Hainan, Shanghai, and Jiangsu.
In eastern China, growth was mainly attributed to net inflows of people coming from less developed regions. But natural growth is also possible as the example of Guizhou shows. The southwestern province had a birth rate of 10.65 babies per thousand residents in 2023, resulting in a natural growth rate of 2.88 new persons per thousand residents.
Guangdong, China's largest economic powerhouse, was the only province to welcome over one million newborns into the world for the fourth straight year last year. Its birth rate reached 8.12 per thousand, ranking among the top provinces, showing the manufacturing hub's strength in attracting migrants and families.
Part II of Wei Jiayu: challenges and solutions for educating migrant children in China
Wei Jiayu and Wang Yong highlight the hurdles posed by the hukou system and propose policy changes to improve educational access for migrant children.
Big City Dreams, Small-Town Realities for China’s Rural Youth
Sixth Tone
As more rural youth return to their hometowns due to employment, family, or disillusionment with big city life, small cities are serving as a buffer zone between their dreams and reality.
China’s revealing struggle with childhood myopia
The Economist
After pandemic lockdowns ended, mass eye tests in several Chinese cities detected spikes in rates of childhood myopia, or fuzzy sight at a distance. That confirms the widely held scientific belief that the healthy growth of young eyes is impeded by too much “near work”, including time spent reading books or watching screens, and by a lack of time outdoors, says Professor Lan.
The findings are being studied closely in China, where rates of myopia have surged over the past quarter-century. More than half of Chinese children and adolescents are short-sighted, with rates exceeding 80% among high-school graduates, though numbers have dipped a bit of late. In 2018 Xi Jinping, the supreme leader, declared myopia a “major concern” that threatens children’s health and China’s strength (fighter pilots and firefighters need perfect sight, state media noted).
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In a familiar approach, central leaders have told provinces and local governments to take myopia seriously and established a few core principles. Since 2018 teachers have been told to reduce workloads, abolishing homework for the youngest pupils in primary school. After-school tutoring, once a gigantic industry, was banned in 2021. Chinese leaders have called for children to spend more time outdoors and less time playing video games. Otherwise, though, local governments are free to experiment.
It is hard to persuade busy, exam-obsessed Chinese parents to let children play outside, alas. As a result, many places are resorting to technology. Wenzhou, a prosperous commercial hub, has installed lamps that mimic natural light in nearly 28,000 classrooms. A pilot scheme in Chengdu, a western city, uses wallpaper in schools that mimics the complexity of natural scenery. Some researchers are intrigued by special glasses and contact lenses that train young eyes in helpful ways, or by atropine, a medicine applied as eye drops that seems to slow myopia’s progression.
Drug-Trafficking Into China Surges After Pandemic Curbs Lifted, Report Says
Caixin
Drug-trafficking in China surged last year after pandemic controls were lifted, making cross-border travel easier, and social activities gradually resumed, according to a government report.
More than 20 tons of illegal drugs produced by foreign sources were confiscated in 2023, up 85% year-on-year, according to a Drug Situation Report released by the Office of National Narcotics Control Commission (ONNCC) on Thursday.
Roberta Lipson: I Opened the First Private Hospital in China
Living History: Stories from the Opening of China
Most people coming to China today know the name United Family Hospital and the modern, international-standard healthcare they offer. Roberta Lipson founded the famous healthcare provider and with it opened the first foreign-invested, private hospital in China, where until then only State-run hospitals exist. She takes us back to the early days of he amazing career in China and tells us about how it all came to be.
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