China announced major policy changes regarding Covid-19 on Monday night.
No more mandatory quarantine.
No designation of close contacts.
No more restrictions on flights.
A negative testing result 48 hours before the trip is the only requirement to travel to China.
THREAD
Thread: Full Chinese readout of Xi-Biden phone call
On the evening of 28 July, President Xi Jinping spoke with US President Joe Biden on the phone at the request of the latter. The two Presidents had a candid communication and exchange on China-US relations and issues of mutual
BREAKING: China releases report saying its Northwestern Polytechnical University has been hacked by U.S. National Security Agency and identifying Robert Edward Joyce, then in charge of NSA's Tailored Access Operations, as was "in direct command".
Breaking: China grants 15-day visa-free entry to citizens of France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and Malaysia in a unilateral, asymmetric opening-up.
The policy is now valid from Dec. 1, 2023, to Nov. 30, 2024.
If you think Twitter is chaotic, take a look at China's walled social media. The populist and nationalist mob is now totally out of control and now even at the door of, for god's sake, Huawei, accusing the Chinese tech giant of some sort of "spiritual Japanese" because Huawei
somebody slipped in a DM:
brother, how can you get
@Twitter
to label you "China state-affiliated media"?
How did you accomplish that?
I mean how did you trigger that?
I want that (China state-affiliated media) too
@joshrogin
When Secretary John Kerry visited China, the receiving Chinese official was also in the exact sanme position - DG for North America and Oceania. And there wasn't a red carpet either.
Former Chinese President Hu Jintao among those paying tributes to his predecessor Jiang Zemin who recently passed away, as shown on primetime TV news today.
because the world's second most populous, second largest economy and largest goods trader with a long history of being invaded by different countries, fearing its trade being choked, wants to have a defense force commensurate with its size and interests that could guard the peace
If China had no intent to use force against Taiwan or beyond, why would it be building and training a massive modern military to do just that? That’s a much more costly and revealing signal than what Xi says to Biden. 2/
Finally, an articulated response to de-risking from Beijing. Li Qiang, China's premier told German CEOs in Berlin:
"we understand that all parties have their own security concerns, and the key is how to define and guard against risks reasonably. If mishandled, risks will be
A THREAD: Guangdong Province released a package of rules tackling racism and discrimination against foreigners, covering restaurants/bars, hotels, tourism, transportation, (super)markets, health/hospitals, education, house rental, residential compounds.
Okay, this paragraph from a final ruling of Beijing No.2 Intermediate People's Court in a labor dispute for trans rights deserves a full translation.
It speaks in the language of progress, tolerance, inclusion, and rule of law.
The original ruling
I strongly condemn the serious escalation represented by the large-scale attack launched on Israel by Iran.
I call for an immediate cessation of these hostilities.
Neither the region nor the world can afford another war.
"For most people outside China, “social credit system” conjure up an instant image: a Black Mirror–esque web of technologies...But the reality is, that terrifying system doesn’t exist, & the government doesn’t seem to have much appetite to build it."
Allow me to explain in A THREAD why, from a typical Chinese perspective, this report would be seen as including significant inaccuracies, omissions and is highly biased/prejudicial.
will try to remain as technical as possible (might fail miserably :)
Would any of you be willing to listen to a podcast of two Chinese guys talking, largely UNSCRIPTED, about what's making news across Chinese traditional and social media in the day for like 20 mins in English?
just a thought...
Feng Yujun at Fudan University gave a long speech on Russia in December, and with his blessing, Pekingnology just published a translation.
The former Director on Russia at CICIR didn't mince his words & it is like nothing you've read from China.
A THREAD
I am no expert on climate policy but can still tell there is a lot to unpack from Chinese President Xi Jinping's speech on the environment and carbon goals today:
1. china is unwavering towards its carbon goals, but how it approaches them will never be influenced by others
The airship is from China. It is a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes. Affected by the Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course. The Chinese side regrets the unintended entry of the
I have long maintained the danger of war, especially in the immediate future such as 2024, 2025, or 2027, in the Taiwan Strait is overblown.
Wednesday’s meeting sends stabilizing signs to cross-Strait relations.
THREAD
This paid-promoted video has been watched 1.1 million times.
Desmond Shum said, "Huawei started its meteoric rise because state-owned telecom companies were ordered by the Chinese govt to buy from local manufacturers, in exclusion of int'l telecom equipment."
That's false.
🧵
China's GDP is 70% of the U.S. despite 3 times the population. In per capita terms, China is 1/5 of the U.S. China is a DEVELOPING country. Etc.
So 5% growth - with significant downward pressure - is concerning.
They are in DIFFERENT phases. This is NOT a double standard.
That's what I am talking about.
For China, a GDP growth rate of 5%-6% is "hasn't bounced back", but for the United States, 1% is "strong and resilient".
I’ve been in more meetings with Chinese leadership than I can remember, but I certainly don’t remember one staged so that the group appears to be walking in unison. The PRC is getting better at optics (and using their visitors to its advantage).
the interview once again confirms my bias: obsession with history is usually not constructive.
historically some place belongs to somewhere can mean very little. why must we refer to the 8th or 13th century but not 220 BC?
we live in the present day with laws, not 8th century.
Wondering what Taipei and especially TSMC think of Florida Gov. RON DeSantis being briefed on China by ELBRIDGE COLBY.
And Gordon Chang for god's sake.
Not enough people are aware of this public service
where you can query certain phrases with Chinese characteristics for Chinese official translations
such as 两个毫不动摇
sorry to share the chinese experience shows development is about factories, dams, and roads, without which there will be literally nothing for people and they won't achieve material, cultural or spiritual fulfiment.
Xu Gao, Chief Economist & Assistant President of Bank of China International, says blocked income transfer from enterprises, especially SOEs, to households is the key culprit behind China's unusually high savings, low consumption, & thus slowdown.
THREAD
Starting mid-February 2023, Sichuan, one of China's most populous provinces with over 83 mln residents, will no longer require marriage to register a newborn baby.
The move eliminates a key hurdle, as proper official registration of newborns is crucial for the children's future.
The French President appears to have secured a lot of official goodwill in China.
The last time that a major Western leader enjoys such a positive full-court Chinese domestic press is...I can't recall.
The Chinese air force released its video documenting the close encounter between its J-11 fighter and the U.S. RC-135 over South China Sea.
China says despite repeated warnings, the RC-135 suddenly changed its flight attitude and did a dangerous maneuver to the left of the J-11.
With all due respect to the respected left-leaning newspaper, what is
@guardian
doing with a "China's war chest" series now in its 4th episode?
China is NOT preparing for war and this war-mongering is just nuts & fits right into the military industrial complex's wet dream
the stupidity from all the nonsense about blowing up TSMC as if it's relevant to the Chinese mainland's claim of Taiwan is off the charts and reveals fundamental ignorance.
The debate was ludicrous from the day some Naval War college professor invented the term "silicon shield."
Well-deserved TIME cover. These so-called low-skilled workers across the world proved they are, unlike people like me, the really essential workers. They deserve much better pay, healthcare and RESPECT, no matter they are in China, Europe, or the U.S.
Beijing No 2 Intermediate People's Court in a final ruling in effect for trans rights, with the most progressive language I've seen in quite some time - for diversity, for tolerance and for the better.
A friend who has been named as one of China's top 20 upcoming investment bankers and earns 4 or 5 million yuan pre-tax every year keeps asking me for free Caixin articles.
Just can't spare 0.01% of his pre-tax income for the most important and respectable business news source.
The first piece of evidence in the major report from otherwise fantastic Propublica is a decisively mistranslation.
The Chinese words meant Wuhan Institute of Virology (had) faced "three nos" at the beginning of the P4 lab and WIV had overcome that.
And WIV was not lamenting.
That so many people buy into this reflects:
(i) how we as a country are now so far removed from manufacturing that we understand so little of it (as demonstrated here and many similar replies), and
(ii) the difference between ideas and execution.
I don't understand why some China watchers, including some I believe understand China very well and I respect, appear genuinely interested in the idea that China could seek to stir up old territorial grievances over Siberia.
China and Russia signed a treaty. It's gone. Settled.
China's top political scientists and international relations scholars gathered at Tsinghua University to grapple with unprecedented challenges to their disciplines and this is the summary of their discussions.
THREAD
w/
@YuxuanJia02
Huang Jikun, Director of China Center for Agricultural Policy at PKU, recently delivered a comprehensive review of China's agricultural policies, highlighting "assertions of an ongoing food security crisis may be somewhat overstated."
THREAD
@ZhaoyinFeng
at the risk of causing a spat which I do not intend at all, I think taking offense at these well-meaning, polite gestures is an increasing, unnecessary byproduct of wokeness and I'm seeing more and more reactions like this
why do senior u.s. military leaders keep talking like this one after another with apparently no consequence and everyone just pretends this is all very normal
He reiterated that the one-China policy of the US has not changed and will not change, and that the US does not support “Taiwan independence”.
The two Presidents exchanged views on issues including the Ukraine crisis. President Xi reiterated China’s principled position.
When a leading U.S. company in gene testing was ordered by a U.S. jury to pay damages to a Chinese rival for violating the latter's intellectual property rights, there is little international reporting of IP theft commonly associated with Chinese companies
define China-US relations in terms of strategic competition and view China as the primary rival and the most serious long-term challenge would be misperceiving China-US relations and misreading China’s development, and would mislead the people of the two countries and the
Yan Xuetong, a renowned international relations professor at Tsinghua University, has visibly grown frustrated with the worldview of some Chinese youth in recent years.
Here he offers some advice for them.
Is there another major State in the world where the Central govt makes enormous policy promises but in reality only directly pays for a fraction of them & tasks the Local govts to figure out the majority of the financial burden?
For example, 80% of overall govt spending
Beijing says 36 faculty members & students led by the Communist Party Secretary of Peking University to visit Taiwan July 15-23, at the invitation of the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation, making it the first time in 3 years for a Chinese mainland higher education group to visit Taiwan.
resolutely safeguarding China’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity is the firm will of the more than 1.4 billion Chinese people. The public opinion cannot be defied. Those who play with fire will perish by it. It is hoped that the US will be clear-eyed about this.
don't want this to be taken as anything other than a technical discussion and all the respect (I mean it) to the most celebrated China economy reporter in U.S. mainstream media, but how is this NOT a WRONG translation that TOTALLY DISTORTED Vice Premier Liu He's original meaning?
Communist Party committees in the workplace — Behind China’s clampdown on private companies. “We have no choice but to follow the party.” My latest on China’s political economy
@WSJ
"if over a billion Chinese citizens have the same living patterns as Australians and Americans do right now then all of us are in for a very miserable time"
Barack Obama's quote from an interview with ABC News in 2010 has been repeatedly quoted in China
A Thread on the UNDERreported but RELENTLESS contact tracing in China.
Harbin city said on April 11 that it discovered 2 confirmed patients and 3 asymptomatic infections since April 9.
In 2 days, Harbin found 456 close contacts of them and put all of them under quarantine
Kevin Rudd recently wrote this on Foreign Policy.
This perception is widely shared in the China-watching community.
This is one of the most consequential misunderstandings on China in recent years, as it is on Taiwan and the "Great Rejuvenation."
A LONG THREAD
around the world expect China and the US to take the lead in upholding world peace and security and in promoting global development and prosperity. This is the responsibility of China and the US as two major countries.
President Xi underscored that to approach and
US military vehicles heading to Washington DC from Fort Myer, Virginia. Rumor has it that Joe Biden has been put under house arrest and General Mark Milley has taken control of the country
Chinese govt unveiled Tuesday, Aug 4 a series of policies supporting semiconductor/chip (formally, integrated circuit) industry for all (including private and foreign) companies in China: ZERO corporate income tax for 10 yrs for companies that manufacture less than 28 nm chips
BREAKING: 赖小民 Lai Xiaomin, former head of China Huarong 华融 Asset Management, was just sentenced to DEATH by a court in Tianjin on Tuesday, Jan. 5, the state broadcaster reported.
Note: NO "two-year reprieve" here. Barring dramatic changes, Lai will be EXECUTED.
congrats to the world's two most populous countries for expelling all journalists from each other. well done. a great service to the combined 2.8 bln people.
You get in full the translation of the 20 Measures - the biggest item in China news today & my analysis.
Plus A THREAD here, starting with Beijing's repeated declaration in a key official notice:
It is NOT relaxing COVID controls or "opening up"
china significantly tightens export controls on drones.
the new rules say even if the drones don't meet the specifics laid out in the notice, when exporters know or should have known the drones could be used for military purposes, then the drones couldn't be exported.
Both Presidents viewed their call as candidand in-depth. They agreed to stay in touchand instructed the two teams to keep up communication and cooperation.
Risk prevention and cooperation are not contradictory. Non-cooperation is the biggest risk, and lack of development is the greatest insecurity. Economic globalization has made the world economy interdependent. We should adopt a dialectical view of interdependence and
, and so are the fact and status quo that both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one and the same China. The three Sino-US joint communiqués embody the political commitments made by the two sides, and the one-China principle is the political foundation for China-US relations.
interest.
President Xi pointed out that in the world today, the trends of turbulence and transformation are evolving, and deficits in development and security are looming large. Faced with a world of change and disorder, the international community and the people
Modern society is becoming more and more diverse, and we are always finding new things happening around us. It is important to embrace these novelties unless they threaten others - the collective, national or social common good. Perhaps it is our tolerance of the many novelties
China firmly opposes separatist moves toward “Taiwan independence” and interference by external forces, and never allows any room for “Taiwan independence” forces in whatever form. The position of the Chinese government and people on the Taiwan question is consistent, and
maintain communication on such important issues as coordinating macroeconomic policies, keeping global industrial and supply chains stable, and protecting global energy and food security. Attempts at decoupling or severing supply chains in defiance of underlying laws would not
international community. The two sides need to maintain communication at all levels and make good use of existing channels to promote bilateral cooperation. Recognizing the many challenges facing the global economy, President Xi underscored the need for China and the US to
amplified, resulting in more and bigger problems. Enterprises have the most direct and acute perception of risks. They know how to avoid and deal with them, so the lead in risk prevention should be given back to the enterprises.
A thread of quick thoughts on the report at the 20th Communist Party of China Congress:
The Belt and Road Initiative was situated in the section on New Development Paradigm & High-Quality Development, alongside economics-oriented statements, despite there being a section
Most people have no idea what PKU's Yao Yang has been doing on ideology, so let me explain.
Yao apparently thinks that some of China's prevailing ideology needs to be changed, or, shall we say, improved/perfect/go with the times.
But it's *not feasible* to just
system centering on the UN and the international order underpinned by international law.
President Xi elaborated on China’s principled position on the Taiwan question. President Xi highlighted that the historical ins and outs of the Taiwan question are crystal clear
i am seldom an optimistic guy on China-U.S. relations but I think so far it has come off better than reasonable expectations.
atmosphere, rhetorics, and human touch matter a lot in the relationship and they have improved dramatically at least on the Chinese side.
You may have just heard it in the news. Here is the full translation of the 24-point policy for attracting foreign investment published by the Chinese government just now.
For it is only when we tolerate a pluralistic way of life that we will be able to have a richer cultural concept and lay the foundations for a tolerant society governed by the rule of law. This may be the logic behind the statement by some scholar(s) that "social tolerance"
help boost the US economy. They would only make the world economy more vulnerable. The two sides need to work for de-escalation of regional hotspots, help rid the world of COVID-19 as early as possible, reduce the risk of stagflation and recession, and uphold the international
Reading the summary of the Chinese policies in the op-ed reminds me of some non-English speaking Chinese people's summary of U.S. policies.
Some summaries are apparently questionable. A most conspicuous example is
via
@WSJ