Ilaria Maria Sala

Hong Kong

It’s a dismaying yet recurring phenomenon that takes place in disparate Asian countries: young people, not known for sympathizing with far-right groups, playing with Nazi imagery in highly public settings.

An article by Hong Kong’s cardinal John Tong is reviving speculation that China and the Vatican will re-establish relations, despite a fundamental disagreement between the two sides over Catholic doctrine.

Colombo, Sri Lanka

It was meant to be a small gathering of newly formed political groups in Hong Kong and Taiwan—and indeed the two-day meeting ending Jan. 8 in Taipei might have gone nearly unnoticed, had a group of people with ties to the local mafia and Chinese Communist Party not decided to violently attack the participants.

With Sao Tomé and Príncipe the latest country to sever diplomatic relations with Taiwan and recognize Beijing, attention is once again turning to the Vatican, arguably the most important of Taipei’s 21 remaining diplomatic allies.

As you sprinkle that extra cinnamon powder on your latte, or get in tune with the festive season by mixing dough for cinnamon rolls, or decide to enliven the atmosphere with some mulled wine, consider this: Do you know if what you are using is Cinnamomum verum, meaning “real cinnamon,” or its slightly deceitful cousin, also sold as “cinnamon” but known in Latin as Cinnamomum cassia?

As the consequences of the abduction of five Hong Kong booksellers to China continue to ricochet throughout the city’s publishing industry, some authors are trying new ways to reach Chinese audiences.

Reindeer pizza delivery may soon become a reality in Hokkaido, the northernmost island of the Japanese archipelago, according to a recent Domino’s Pizza Japan press release.

After Beijing controversially stepped in to block two pro-independence lawmakers-elect from taking office in Hong Kong by offering its “interpretation” of the city’s own laws, Hong Kong lawyers are left wondering how to clean up the mess.

Update: The Twitter account was suspended after Ferrante’s publisher said it was a fake.

Exiled from their own land since birth, a new generation of Tibetan artists is producing challenging art that the Chinese Communist Party cannot control.

Diplomacy in the Vatican has been changing fast under Pope Francis, who has pushed the Roman Catholic Church to shift its gaze toward what he calls “the peripheries.”

Lawyer Xia Lin was sentenced to 12 years in jail on Thursday (Sept. 22), sending the latest chill through the much-battered legal community in China, which is suffering under a relentless two year crackdown that has seen hundreds of human rights lawyers arrested.

In one fell swoop, years of reporting from the Chinese-language website of Hong Kong’s main English newspaper, the South China Morning Post, is gone.

The bizarre “One Country, Two Systems” formula under which Hong Kong has been ruled since its handover to Beijing in 1997 has been declared dead many times—but last Sunday’s elections may just have proven its remarkable resilience.

He ran a low-cost campaign, and many of his electoral posters featured hand-painted slogans, but Eddie Chu Hoi-dick is the surprise winner of Hong Kong’s fraught and complicated elections, gathering more than 84,000 votes–the highest number won by any single candidate.

Thanks to a byzantine electoral system, the national airline of Israel, a Vanuatu-linked organization, and a maker of “chicken biscuits” will vote in the city’s first legislative election since the Umbrella Movement.

Hong Kong

After decades of being locked out of China, the Holy See seems to be on the path to a rapprochement with Beijing. But coming at a time when Beijing is cracking down on religious freedom at levels not seen since the Cultural Revolution, the prospect has become deeply troubling to many in the Church.

After Sweden, the US, the Philippines, and South Korea (paywall), the latest country to hurt China’s feelings is Australia.

Does a major new archaeological discovery extend recorded Chinese history back a few thousand years?

Where exactly is the money for the new, enormous business deal between Yorkshire’s former steel center Sheffield and Chinese tycoon Wang Chunming coming from? It is hard to say.

When Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kee decided that he was going to hold a press conference to reveal what had happened to him after he disappeared for months into China, he had to know the stakes were high.