Mainland China frequently denies visas to foreign journalists and scholars—a preferred way to force out those whose reporting or research officials object to. But Hong Kong has long offered a welcoming visa regime that made it a safe hub for journalists in the region.
Last Friday, Indonesia’s Sulawesi island was hit by a 7.5-magnitude earthquake, which triggered a tsunami that washed away homes, and turned the ground to liquid mud in parts. The official death toll has risen to 1,400, and disaster response teams are still uncovering bodies from rubble around Palu, a city of 350,000 near the quake’s epicenter, where thousands are now homeless.
Money talks, and free champagne talks even louder, apparently.
Malaysia has been looking for him. The US government has been seeking him (pdf). And Wall Street Journal reporters Tom Wright and Bradley Hope have been trying to reach him for comment multiple times a year for several years now.
Typhoon Mangkhut, one of the most intense storms in years, was nearing its closest point to southern China this morning (Sept. 16), with Hong Kong, Guangdong province, and Hainan island likely to be the most affected.
A year ago, Cambridge University Press made the shock announcement that it was pulling more than 300 articles from its China Quarterly website in China at the request of the government there. It then reversed itself, declining to pull the articles, which covered topics like the 1989 Tiananmen uprising and analysis of Communist Party leaders. Soon after, however, other major academic publishers revealed they had acquiesced to censorship requests from Beijing.
Super Typhoon Mangkhut, one of the most intense storm systems this year, is expected to make landfall Saturday (Sept. 15) morning in the Philippines. According to the country’s weather agency, it’s packing sustained winds of 205 km/h (125 mph) at its center, which would make it the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane; the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System puts its wind speed higher and has said it’s the equivalent of a Category 5 storm.
Just days after the New York Times ignited intense speculation (paywall) that Jack Ma was retiring imminently as chairman of e-commerce giant Alibaba, Ma today (Sept. 10) announced that he would step down exactly a year from now, with CEO Daniel Zhang succeeding him.
On Monday (Sept. 10), Jack Ma’s 54th birthday, the co-founder of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba announced that he would retire as chairman of Asia’s most valuable company in exactly one year. He will remain on the company’s board of directors till 2020.
Alibaba Group on Monday (Sept. 10) announced that CEO Daniel Zhang would take over the role of chairman from co-founder Jack Ma a year from today.
North Korea on Sunday (Sept. 9) celebrated the 70th anniversary of the founding of the state under the leadership of Kim Il Sung, grandfather of current leader Kim Jong Un.
The trade war between the US and China currently stands at tariffs on $50 billion in goods imposed by both sides, and could soon see billions more in goods drawn into the fray. The comment period on the proposed list for tariffs on another $200 billion in goods ended Thursday (Sept. 6) night, and the US must now decide what it will do next.
Cherished rights often come about because organizations and people have worked for years to make them happen. But they also usually depend—in the last mile—on a few people (paywall) deciding to step forward at great personal risk to push a country forward.
The leaders of dozens of African nations are in Beijing this week for a major China-Africa cooperation summit that takes place every three years. African leaders have come away from these meetings in the past with billions of dollars in investment commitments from China.
Cambodia has convicted Australian filmmaker James Ricketson on spying charges after a trial that saw prosecutors accuse him of making the world “hate Cambodia,” through his documentary and other activities, but did not say which country he was allegedly spying for. He has been sentenced to six years in prison.
Chinese tech giant Huawei is huge in much of the world—it’s the world’s second-biggest seller of smartphones and a major provider of telecom infrastructure. But in Australia, it’s increasingly as unwelcome as it is in the US, where it’s long been blocked because of the belief that it’s closely tied to the Chinese government and its military.
A Quilter’s Oasis, a Mesa, Ariz.-based arts and crafts store started by a former nurse, offers classes for beginners and the advanced, and all the fabrics you might need for your special project. In Sunnyvale, California, the Granary Quilt Shop offers classes and supplies for making “cottontail cottage” and “stars and baskets” pieces.
This week, the US and China will impose tariffs on another $16 billion in goods each, taking the total affected so far to $50 billion. The US will also hear from companies and people that stand to be affected by tariffs it’s considering imposing on another $200 billion in goods.
A judge in Malaysia found today (Aug. 16) that there’s enough evidence to continue with the trial of two young Southeast Asian migrant workers on charges of murdering Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, last year in Kuala Lumpur’s airport. If convicted, they’ll face the death penalty.
Ronald Reagan National Airport, one of the primary airports serving the Washington DC area, registered a power outage beginning at approximately 9:45 pm ET, forcing the airport to put at least some flight takeoffs on hold, and divert others, with many computer systems down. The airport said via Twitter that flights were operating, albeit slowly during the blackout. A little over an hour after lights went out, it said power was restored. The airport didn’t specify a reason for the outage.
The publisher of the Communist Party-affiliated newspaper, People’s Daily, has published a blockchain guide called Blockchain—a Guide for Officials, the state-run paper announced earlier this week. The book appears to have gone online (link in Chinese) last month, and is aimed at helping top Communist officials better understand a technology that the party seems pretty excited about, as long as it can control it.
Until a few weeks ago, the calendar of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC) in Hong Kong was dominated by events like “Artificial Intelligence – The New Global Arms Race” and “Resurgent or Turbulent Indonesia,” along with a few wonky talks about the state of freedoms in Hong Kong.
Shortly before his first trip to China since taking office, Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad said in an interview that he would like to cancel a pair of Chinese projects he had earlier ordered suspended and probed for its ties to the scandal-ridden 1MDB state-development fund.
One would-be protester skulked on the streets around the Westin Hotel in Beijing’s financial district until 3 am, heading back only when police had finished their searches. Another, Alex Li, carpooled part of the way from northern Harbin province to avoid police surveillance on public transport.
