China

China has no right to decide whether or not Taiwan is a country given it chooses its own government, Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung said on Wednesday, adding that he would be happy to shake the hand of his Chinese opposite number in friendship.

China views democratically-governed Taiwan as its own territory and has stepped up military and political pressure to assert those claims, including increasing the intensity of war games, saying the island is one of its provinces with no right to be called a state.

[...]

At just 37 hectares, the Philippines-controlled island of Pagasa – or "hope" – is barely big enough to live on. There is almost nothing there.

The 300 or so inhabitants live in a cluster of small, wooden houses. They fish in the clear, turquoise waters, and grow what vegetables they can in the sandy ground.

But they are not alone in these disputed waters: just off shore, to the west, lies an armada of ships.

These are all Chinese, from the navy, the coastguard or the so-called maritime militia – large fishing vessels repurposed to maintain Chinese dominance of this sea. As our plane approached the island we counted at least 20.

For the past 10 years, China has been expanding its presence in the South China Sea, taking over submerged coral reefs, building three large air bases on them, and deploying hundreds of ships, to reinforce its claim to almost all of the strategic sea lanes running south from the great exporting cities on the Chinese coast.

Few of the South East Asian countries which also claim islands in the same sea have dared to push back against China; only Vietnam and the Philippines have done so. The militaries of both countries are much smaller than China's, but they are holding on to a handful of reefs and islands.

[...]

"Pagasa is very important to us," Jonathan Malaya, assistant director-general of the Philippines National Security Council, tells the BBC.

"It has a runway. It can support life – it has a resident Filipino community, and fishermen living there.

"And given the size of the island, one of the few that did not need reclaiming from the sea, under international law it generates its own territorial sea of 12 nautical miles.

"So it is, in a way, a linchpin for the Philippine presence."

[...]

[Assistant director-general of the Philippines National Security Council] Jonathan Malaya says his government has made a formal diplomatic protest every week to the Chinese Embassy over the presence of its ships in what the Philippines views as the territorial waters of Pagasa. This is in marked contrast to the previous administration of President Rodrigo Duterte, which avoided confrontations with China in the hope of getting more investment in the Philippines.

[...]

Archived

In 2010, an elite unit of the Chinese police entered an Apple shop in Shanghai and violently assaulted the customers. The attack was so brutal that the floor tiles subsequently had to be replaced: they were too bloodstained. Those customers had been waiting in line for days for the latest iPhone; their crime was to refuse to leave upon learning that the shop had sold out of stock.

Yet no official record of this event exists. The shop’s cameras were cut and employees had their phones wiped. “It shows you how quickly the Chinese can brush everything under the carpet,” one person present tells journalist Patrick McGee. “It was like a mini-Tiananmen Square.” The incident is one small example in McGee’s eye-opening book, Apple in China, of how the Californian iPhone maker has “bound its future inextricably to a ruthless authoritarian state”.

When people think of Apple’s presence in China, the focus tends either to be on the cheap manufacture of the company’s parts and the poor working conditions at those factories, or on the censorship of content on Apple devices inside the country. McGee, a journalist at the Financial Times, breaks down in much greater detail the relationship between this capitalist company and communist nation – a relationship so intertwined and complex that it will take decades to unravel. He makes the argument that not only has China effectively made Apple what it is today, but the reverse is also true. “China wouldn’t be China today without Apple,” McGee writes. “[Apple’s] investments in the country have been spectacular, rivalling nation-building efforts.”

[...]

The more Apple invests in both training these [Chinese] contracted factory workers and paying for special machinery that could only be used for its products – in 2018 the value of Apple’s “long-lived assets” in China peaked at $13.3 billion – the more it becomes bound to the country. [Apple contractor's] Foxconn hubs, for example, are now surrounded by hundreds of sub-suppliers that cater to Apple’s every whim. “Anything we wanted, we could get it,” one engineer recalls. “Whatever we needed, it would happen.”

[...]

Apple is notoriously secretive, but McGee proffers dozens of first-hand accounts of how the company essentially bumbled its way into becoming hooked on China. By the time Apple executives realise that the Chinese president Xi Jinping is ramping up repression at home and taking a more combative stance in international affairs, it’s too late to untangle the relationship: those business ties, McGee writes, are “unbreakable”. In 2016, when the Chinese authorities make it clear that they can remove, whenever they want, the cheap and plentiful labour on which Apple relies, Cook is compelled to make a trip to the Chinese Communist Party headquarters. The company pledges to invest $275 billion in China over the next five years. It does not, unsurprisingly, announce this investment to the Western press.

[...]

The Center for Uyghur Studies released its new report titled “Breaking the Roots: China’s Use of Boarding Schools as a Tool of Genocide Against Uyghur Muslims.” This report sheds light on one of the most alarming and underreported aspects of China’s repressive policies against the Uyghur people: the state-run boarding school system that targets Uyghur children in East Turkistan (AKA Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region). The report documents how these schools are being used not as centers of learning and development, but as tools of forced assimilation, designed to erase Uyghur identity, language, and culture from a young age.

[...]

The report provides an in-depth examination of how the boarding school system in the Uyghur homeland functions as a mechanism of cultural genocide:

• Policy Origins – Tracing the roots of China’s assimilation campaign against the Uyghurs, including how “counter-terrorism” narratives have been used to justify oppressive policies post-9/11.
• Implementation of Boarding Schools, detailing how children, some as young as primary school age, are forcibly separated from their families and placed into state-run facilities.
• Educational Indoctrination, describing the curriculum and environment within these schools, where the Uyghur language is banned, familial ties are vilified, and loyalty to the state is indoctrinated.
• Eyewitness Testimonies, presenting first-hand accounts from survivors of these schools, offering credible and emotional insight into the long-term psychological and cultural damage inflicted on Uyghur children.

[...]

[Experts say that the matter with the] ‘boarding schools’ is not education, it is forced assimilation, cultural erasure, and psychological trauma. By severing children from their families, language, and identity, the Chinese government is committing a grave injustice that meets the definition of genocide. The international community cannot remain silent in the face of this systematic destruction of an entire people’s future.

[...]

[Edit typo.]

Arthur Kaufman | May 19, 2025

Researchers from the censorship monitoring platform Great Firewall Report (GFW Report) published an investigation last week that “sounds the alarm” about the emergence of regional online censorship in China. They noted that in August 2023, netizens in Henan began reporting an uptick in inaccessible websites that were accessible elsewhere in the country. Their investigation found no evidence of region-specific censorship in the other areas analyzed—Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Sichuan—but did find that Henan censored a massive amount of content beyond that blocked by China’s national-level Great Firewall. GFW Report authors Mingshi Wu, Ali Zohaib, Zakir Durumeric, Amir Houmansadr, and Eric Wustrow provided more detail on the scale, targets, and potential motivations of Henan’s firewall:

Since Xi Jinping came to power has centralised the state authority in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), using a mix of patriotism, brutality and 'convenient' events like the COVID pandemic.

[...]

For decades, analysts described China’s governance as “fragmented authoritarianism” —a system where policymaking was shaped by competing bureaucracies, local governments, and state-owned enterprises (SOEs), often resulting in disjointed or incoherent policy outcomes. This model reflected the post-Mao era strategy of decentralisation, as Beijing deliberately delegated authority to provinces and ministries in the 1980s–90s to spur economic innovation.

Under Xi Jinping [there] is a top-down system that is more coherent and centralised yet still allows tactical flexibility. Xi’s central leadership now defines broad strategic goals and strict “red lines,” but grants operational autonomy to lower-level actors to carry out these goals within unwritten but well-understood boundaries.

[...]

China’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic starkly illustrated the CCP’s embedded authoritarianism on the domestic front. As the crisis unfolded, the state dramatically expanded its presence at the grassroots, embedding Party networks throughout society.

During the pandemic, the Party shifted from more direct, top-down control (“integrated domination”) to a strategy of “embedded” domination that penetrated communities in an almost cellular fashion. In practice, this meant an aggressive infusion of Party authority into everyday governance in order to mobilise resources and enforce compliance.

[...]

By embedding Party cells and personnel into community life, the state could indirectly control society in a more pervasive way than through overt coercion alone. This embedded approach allowed the regime to marshal social forces as extensions of the Party-state.

Indeed, Beijing managed to mobilise ordinary citizens and local organisations for Party objectives and state security, blurring the line between voluntary civic action and Party mandate. The result was a consolidation of political control: grassroots governance became an arm of CCP authority, significantly boosting the Party’s influence over both state and society.

[...]

What is clear is that Xi’s tenure has redefined authoritarian governance in China, making it more embedded, expansive, and adaptive. The CCP’s “nexus” with society—once relatively loose—is now much tighter, as Party dominance extends through networks that penetrate everyday life. This has solidified the Party’s grip, but it also commits the Party to addressing social demands more directly, since it has positioned itself as the architect of grassroots governance.

[...]

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) in Porto (Portugal) is leading an investigation into suspected large-scale customs fraud related to the import of e-bikes from China. Sixteen searches were conducted yesterday in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Portugal, in order to collect evidence.

The investigation, codenamed Pedelecs, revealed that, since 2020, a Portuguese company has been importing disassembled electric bicycles (e-bikes) from Chinese suppliers in separate parts, with the aim of circumventing the payment of anti-dumping duties applicable on the importation of fully assembled e-bikes. For that purpose, the consignments were deliberately misdeclared to the customs authorities.

However, the e-bikes were fully designed in China at the request of several European resellers and then shipped in disassembled form to the Portuguese company for assembly. Once assembled, the e-bikes were sold back to the European resellers in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands who had originally placed the orders with the Chinese suppliers.

The estimated damage to the EU budget caused by this fraud scheme amounts to €2.25 million.

[...]

The EPPO is the independent public prosecution office of the European Union. It is responsible for investigating, prosecuting and bringing to judgment crimes against the financial interests of the EU.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.nl/post/34355458

Archived

Social media has been buzzing recently with claims that China has been dropping food and medical supplies to Gaza from the air.

The posts, which feature footage of a C-17 aircraft releasing pallets of aid, have been widely shared, with captions praising China’s humanitarian efforts and presenting it as a contrast to Western inaction. However, a closer look at the evidence shows that these claims are simply not true.

[...]

The viral videos and images typically show a C-17 aircraft performing airdrops. Social media users, including popular profiles on TikTok, have posted messages claiming that the Chinese Air Force flew over Egypt to deliver aid to Gaza. One widely circulated post stated: “Chinese airforce flew over Egypt to reach Gaza to provide humanitarian aid.” Others paint China as a humanitarian powerhouse, taking bold action where others haven’t.

[...]

The problem with these claims? China doesn’t even operate the C-17 aircraft. The C-17 Globemaster III is a large military transport plane used mainly by the United States and several allied countries, but not by China. That fact alone should be enough to raise doubts.

[...]

Investigations into the footage reveal that most of the clips circulating online actually show a United States aid airdrop over Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, from March 2024. The same tower and parachutes seen in the misleading videos confirm that these clips have been repurposed to create a false narrative. This key detail debunks the notion that Chinese planes were involved.

[...]

Despite the dramatic presentation, there’s no credible evidence that Chinese planes have been involved in any airdrop missions to Gaza.

Cross posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/34808510

Sharing a dirty cell with a dozen others, constant sleep deprivation, cells with lights on 24-hours a day; poor hygiene and forced labour. These are some of what prisoners in Chinese jails are subjected to, according to Australian citizen Matthew Radalj, who spent five years at the Beijing No 2 prison – a facility used for international inmates.

Radalj, who is now living outside China, has decided to go public about his experience, and described undergoing and witnessing severe physical punishment, forced labour, food deprivation and psychological torture.

[...]

"I was in really bad shape when I arrived. They beat me for two days straight in the first police station that I was in. I hadn't slept or eaten or had water for 48 hours and then I was forced to sign a big stack of documents," said Radalj of his introduction to imprisonment in China, which began with his arrest on 2 January, 2020.

The former Beijing resident claims he was wrongfully convicted after a fight with shopkeepers at an electronics market, following a dispute over the agreed price to fix a mobile phone screen.

He claims he ended up signing a false confession to robbery, after being told it would be pointless to try to defend his innocence in a system with an almost 100% criminal conviction rate and in the hope that this would reduce the time of his incarceration.

Court documents indicate that this worked at least to some extent, earning him a four-year sentence.

Once in prison, he said he first had to spend many months in a separate detention centre where he was subjected to a more brutal "transition phase".

[...]

During this time prisoners must follow extremely harsh rules in what he described as horrific conditions.

"We were banned from showering or cleaning ourselves, sometimes for months at a time. Even the toilet could be used only at specific allotted times, and they were filthy - waste from the toilets above would constantly drip down on to us."

[...]

The "good behaviour points system" [...] was a way – at least in theory – to reduce your sentence.

Prisoners could obtain a maximum of 100 good behaviour points per month for doing things like studying Communist Party literature, working in the prison factory or snitching on other prisoners. Once 4,200 points were accumulated, they could in theory be used to reduce prison time.

If you do the maths, that would mean a prisoner would have to get maximum points every single month for three-and-half years before this could start to work.

Radalj said that in reality it was used as a means of psychological torture and manipulation.

He claims the guards would deliberately wait till an inmate had almost reached this goal and then penalise them on any one of a huge list of possible infractions which would cancel out points at the crucial time.

These infractions included - but were not limited to - hoarding or sharing food with other prisoners, walking "incorrectly" in the hallway by straying from a line painted on the ground, hanging socks on a bed incorrectly, or even standing too close to the window.

[...]

Former British prisoner Peter Humphrey, who spent two years in detention in Shanghai, said his facility had a similar points calculation and reduction system which was manipulated to control prisoners and block sentence reductions.

"There were cameras everywhere, even three to a cell," he said. "If you crossed a line marked on the ground and were caught by a guard or on camera, you would be punished. The same if you didn't make your bed properly to military standard or didn't place your toothbrush in the right place in the cell.

"There was also group pressure on prisoners with entire cell groups punished if one prisoner did any of these things."

One ex-inmate told the BBC that in his five years in prison, he never once saw the points actually used to mitigate a sentence.

Radalj said that there were a number of prisoners - including himself - who didn't bother with the points system.

So authorities resorted to other means of applying psychological pressure.

These included cutting time off monthly family phone calls or the reduction of other perceived benefits.

[...]

But the most common daily punishment involved the reduction of food.

The BBC has been told by numerous former inmates that the meals at Beijing's No 2 prison were mostly made up of cabbage in dirty water which sometimes also had bits of carrot and, if they were lucky, small slivers of meat.

[...]

To make things worse, they were made to work on a "farm", where they did manage to grow a lot of vegetables, but were never allowed to eat them.

Radalj said the farm was displayed to a visiting justice minister as an example of how impressive prison life was.

But, he said, it was all for show.

"We would be growing tomatoes, potatoes, cabbages and okra and then – at the end of the season – they would push it all into a big hole and bury it," he added.

[...]

Another prisoner said they would occasionally suddenly receive protein, like a chicken leg, to make their diet look better when officials visited the prison.

[...]

"You start to go crazy, whether you like it or not, and that's what solitary is designed to do… So you've got to decide very quickly whether your room is really, really small, or really, really big.

"After four months, you just start talking to yourself all the time. The guards would come by and ask 'Hey, are you okay?'. And you're like, 'why?'. They replied, 'because you're laughing'."

Then, Radalj said, he would respond, in his own mind: "It's none of your business."

[...]

Another feature of Chinese prison life, according to Radalji, was the fake "propaganda" moments officials would stage for Chinese media or visiting officials to paint a rosy picture of conditions there.

He said, at one point, a "computer suite" was set up. "They got everyone together and told us that we'd get our own email address and that we would be able to send emails. They then filmed three Nigerian guys using these computers."

The three prisoners apparently looked confused because the computers were not actually connected to the internet - but the guards had told them to just "pretend".

"Everything was filmed to present a fake image of prisoners with access to computers," Radalj said.

But, he claims, soon after the photo opportunity, the computers were wrapped up in plastic and never touched again.

[...]

Radalj said many of the prisoners had no way of letting their families know they were in jail.

[...]

[After he was released from prison], just before he had boarded the plane in Beijing a policeman who had escorted him to the gate had used Radalj's boarding pass to buy duty free cigarettes for his mates.

"He said don't come back to China. You're banned for 10 years. And I said 'yeah cool. Don't smoke. It's bad for your health'".

The officer laughed.

[...]

Archived

At the Port of Anping in Tainan, Taiwan's ancient capital, a large cargo ship named Hong Tai 58 sits decaying and riddled with rust.

Once ruled by a pirate warlord named Koxinga, who drove out Dutch colonists in the 1662 siege of Fort Zeelandia, Tainan is now where this crumbling vessel and its captain have been detained since February.

One of the ship's anchors is missing, likely left lying on the seabed about 10 kilometres west.

There, it's alleged the captain instructed his sailors to zigzag over the top of Taiwan-Penghu No. 3 communications cable, which connects the 100,000 residents of the outlying Penghu Islands to the rest of Taiwan and the world.

There are 24 of these vital arteries which connect Taiwan to the beating heart of the modern world — the internet — and China has been accused of sabotaging several, including two just this year.

Even though the Chinese Communist Party has never ruled Taiwan, Beijing has labelled what it calls "reunification" as essential to the full rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

[...]

Communications weren't impacted in Penghu in February.

But the Penghu archipelago sits much nearer to Taiwan's main island, showing how willing Beijing is to encroach closer and closer in its efforts to pressure the self-ruled democracy.

[...]

The Hong Tai 58 was flying under a flag of convenience, registered to the nearly landlocked African nation of Togo.

Its crew and captain are Chinese, and the Taiwanese coastguard alleges it is funded by China.

Prosecutors say the ship's movements were erratic in the days before the cable was cut, and tracking data shows it had been hanging around the area for some time.

[...]

The cutting of Penghu's telecommunications cable was the second act of alleged Chinese sabotage just this year.

In January, the Trans-Pacific Express Cable System north of Taiwan was cut in another set of suspicious circumstances.

Authorities alleged a Cameroon-registered, Hong Kong-owned freighter named the Shunxing 39 was responsible, and requests were made for help from South Korea as the vessel was headed towards Busan.

The ship's owner at the time denied the ship had cut the cable, calling it a "normal trip".

Weeks later, Taiwan's digital affairs ministry declared that 10 of its undersea cables would be classified as "critical infrastructure", which comes with extra security and increased government oversight.

[...]

Two days before Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Malaysia in April, police officers arrested more than 70 Falun Gong practitioners and allegedly held them until after Xi left the country, echoing a pattern of detention identified by ICIJ in its recent China Targets investigation.

Kuala Lumpur Police Chief Datuk Rusdi Mohd Isa told ICIJ partner Malaysiakini, which first reported the detentions, the group had been arrested under suspicion of being involved in an “illegal organization.” He refuted allegations that officers had received instructions to preemptively detain the practitioners ahead of Xi’s visit to the country and said he directed Kuala Lumpur’s criminal investigations chief to “take strong action against the group.”

As part of China Targets, which exposed Beijing’s tactics for silencing its critics worldwide, ICIJ found that during Xi’s overseas trips between 2019 and 2024 local law enforcement detained or arrested dozens of activists, often for spurious reasons. Those targeted by local police included Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities, as well as members of the Falun Gong movement.

[...]

China outlawed Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa, in 1999, labeling the spiritual movement “an evil cult.”

[...]

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/30393129

• Increased scrutiny of Chinese tech companies pushed startups to hide their roots overseas.
• DeepSeek’s success has emboldened some Chinese founders to tout advantages of China talent and operations.
• Startups chasing foreign investment are more likely to pursue China-shedding.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/34611532

Archived

The European Union has categorically ruled out any revival of the stalled Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) with China, with a top EU official stating there is “absolutely no intention” to reinitiate negotiations, even as Beijing signals openness to rekindling economic ties.

Marjut Hannonen, head of trade at the EU delegation in Beijing, reportedly made the remarks during a panel discussion marking 50 years of diplomatic relations between the EU and China, reported the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP). Dr Sari Arho Havrén from UK's Royal United Service Institue posted on social media, citing Hannonen: "“[It] is already challenging enough to try to make progress on existing problems so there is absolutely no intention on the EU side to do anything on CAI which is there somewhere in the closet.”

Hannonen said EU-China relations had “steadily deteriorated” over the past two decades, pointing to increasing market barriers and what the EU sees as unfair trade practices from China.

[...]

The CAI, finalised in 2020 but never officially signed, was once hailed as a landmark economic agreement to deepen investment flows between Brussels and Beijing. But the deal hit a deadlock in 2021 after the European Parliament froze it in response to retaliatory sanctions from China over the EU’s criticism of alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

[...]

Since the deal fell through, Chinese officials have lobbied quietly to restart the dialogue, including overtures from Fu Cong, China’s former ambassador to the EU. Last month, China lifted sanctions on five Members of the European Parliament and the subcommittee on human rights—a move widely seen as an olive branch.

Yet EU officials remain unconvinced.

[...]

Among the most pressing concerns voiced by the EU is China’s industrial overcapacity, particularly in sectors such as electric vehicles (EVs), steel, and solar panels. European leaders argue that state subsidies in China allow firms to export products at artificially low prices, undercutting local industries and creating a growing trade imbalance.

[...]

In a keynote speech at the conference, former French PM Michel Barnier also emphasized that China’s "distortive policies" would lead to industrial overcapacity. He also urged China to use its leverage over Moscow to "encourage Russia to end this aggression in Ukraine and respond to Ukraine’s proposal for a full ceasefire of hostilities."

"These challenges are not only economic issues but also have a social and political nature as our public opinions turn an increasingly negative eye to free trade because ongoing imbalances threaten European industries and ultimately European jobs," Barnier said.

"This trend is fueling populism in European countries, including France, and can only have bad consequences for us Europeans but also for our trade and relations with China against which populist will inevitably turn against, as they did in the United States."

[...]

China’s government should free the 11th Panchen Lama Gendun Choki Nyima and his parents, whom Chinese authorities forcibly disappeared on May 17, 1995, and who have not been seen for 30 years, Human Rights Watch said today.

The Panchen Lama and the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s religious leader, have historically played key roles in recognizing the other’s successor. As the current 14th Dalai Lama will celebrate his 90th birthday on July 6, the question of his succession—and the future of Tibetan Buddhism and the Tibetan people—is becoming increasingly urgent.

“The Chinese government kidnapped a 6-year-old and his family and have disappeared them for 30 years to control the selection of the next Dalai Lama and thus Tibetan Buddhism itself,” said Yalkun Uluyol, China researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Concerned parties should press the Chinese government to end this cruelty and secure the freedom of Gendun Choki Nyima and his family.”

The Chinese government forcibly disappeared the then 6-year-old on May 17, 1995, three days after the Dalai Lama recognized him as the 11th Panchen Lama. Even pictures of Gendun Choki Nyima, along with those of the Dalai Lama, are prohibited in Tibet.

[...]

Authorities also detained Jadrel Rinpoche, the abbot of Tashi Lhunpo Monastery who oversaw the search for the Panchen Lama’s reincarnation, and arrested more than 30 monks from the monastery. Jadrel Rinpoche’s whereabouts and well-being are also unknown.

[...]

[Edit typo.]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/34582642

Archived

GD Culture (GDC) Group, a NASDAQ-listed company claiming to be a TikTok e-commerce platform with links to China, 8 employees and no revenue reported in 2024, pledges $300M that it plans to use to purchase Bitcoin and the $Trump meme coin, as per a SEC (Security and Exchange Commission) filing on May 11.

According to the filing, GDC said it plans to allocate its budget to Bitcoin and TRUMP using proceeds from a private stock placement to an unnamed entity based in the British Virgin Islands, a jurisdiction known for its secrecy and favorable tax status.

[...]

Until now, GD Culture Group has had a minimal public footprint. Its operations in China and reliance on a Chinese-owned platform like TikTok gave it little visibility in Western capital markets. But that changed dramatically when it revealed plans to raise hundreds of millions of dollars through a two‑year “equity line” (also called a committed‑equity facility) with a single accredited investor.

[...]

Should the transaction proceed as filed, GDC’s assets could balloon from just $14 million at the end of 2024 to potentially more than $300 million.

[...]

The timing of the move is especially contentious. Lawmakers in Washington are debating a proposed ban on TikTok, citing national security concerns over its Chinese ownership. President Trump has expressed support for a deal allowing the platform to continue operating in the US, a position at odds with many in Congress.

GD Culture Group’s announcement directly intersects with this policy debate. Ethics experts argue that any financial gain for the Trump family linked to such a decision would represent an apparent conflict of interest.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/34581721

Australian writer Yang Hengjun (杨恒均) has written an open letter to Australian PM Anthony Albanese from his prison cell in Beijing

He thanks the Australian government and expresses his love for Australia. He also writes of his dream that the Chinese people "should be free from fear, persecution and poverty."

Dr Yang, a former Chinese government official who migrated to Australia in 1998 and was a prolific pro-democracy blogger and novelist, also included Australia's embrace of multiculturalism and protection of freedoms.

Concerns for Dr Yang's health intensified last year with the revelation the 58-year-old had a large cyst on one of his kidneys.

While diplomatic breakthroughs on other fronts with China, including the release of journalist Cheng Lei and the winding back of effective trade bans, had raised some hopes of progress in Dr Yang's status, government sources warned last year his case was "very different" and there has been little evidence of progress.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/34522160

Archived

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian on Monday brushed off European Union complaints about treatment by Beijing, instead touting half-a-century's progress in economic ties.

However, recent remarks by the EU's top envoy suggest a thaw may be elusive—even as Beijing courts Brussels in a bid to capitalize on a growing rift with the United States.

[...]

Speaking at a Shanghai event on Friday, EU Ambassador to China Jorge Toledo echoed the long-standing concerns of many European firms about preferential treatment of local competitors in the Chinese market.

"We have not been taken seriously when it comes to trade barriers," Toledo said. "Market access barriers [for European companies in China] are not going down. They're going up."

"We strongly feel that we not only do not have a level playing field for our companies in China, that the situation is not improving … there is something that has to be done," Toledo added.

[...]

The trade dispute between China and the EU escalated last October after Brussels raised tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles to as high as 45.3 percent, citing concerns over overcapacity that undercuts local manufacturers.

[...]

The two sides also remain at odds over material support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, with European officials saying Chinese authorities haven't done enough to curb dual-use exports that support Moscow's war machine.

[...]

Grzegorz Stec, analyst with the Mercator Institute for China Studies' Brussels office, wrote in February: "Beijing is betting that pressure from Washington will send Europe into the arms of China to counterbalance trans-Atlantic tensions.

"Despite such views from Beijing, the lacking trust and persisting fundamental divergences of interests between China and Europe, even with Trump in the picture, mean there is a limit to any potential rapprochement."

[...]

[...]

Funding parameters

• Project duration: 6 to 12 months
• Funding range: USD 5,000 to 25,000
• Target applicants: Civil society organisations, informal collectives, or Chinese HRD networks based outside China.
• Registration is not required, but applicants must be able to manage funds and activities in accordance with local tax and legal requirements.
• Location: Projects must be implemented outside China, preferably in Europe
• Strategic focus: Activities should contribute to international understanding and documentation of PRC human rights violations in- or outside of China, build community resilience against transnational repression, and/or increase local democratic engagement. Particular attention will be paid to the innovative nature or focus of proposed projects.

[...]

How to apply

Please submit a concept note (maximum 2 pages, Word format) including the following:

• Organizational/Network/Personal background (at this stage, do NOT include any sensitive personal information).
• Proposed program background, problem statement and target audience/location.
• Project goals and intended outcomes.
• Main activities and proposed timeline (max. duration 12 months).
• Estimated budget.
• Risk assessment and mitigation strategies

[...]

Archived

[...]

At the beginning of March 2025, non-governmental government (NGO) sources confirmed that Zhang will soon be tried on the charge of ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble’, a charge often used by Chinese authorities to suppress journalists, writers and human rights defenders. The date of her trial is still unknown, as she remains detained in the Pudong Detention Center in Shanghai, facing an additional up to five years in prison if convicted.

Zhang Zhan was apprehended by the police on 28 August 2024, only three months after completion of an earlier four-year sentence under the same charge, while travelling to her hometown in the Shaanxi province in northwest China. In the weeks leading up to this incident, Zhang kept reporting on the harassment of activists in China on her social media accounts.

Her first detention was deemed arbitrary under international human rights law by the United Nation’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in a 2021 opinion. In a November 2024 letter to the Chinese government, nine UN Special Procedures mandates raised lengthy concerns about patterns of repression against Zhang Zhan, alongside 17 other human rights defenders, requesting the government take measures to prevent any irreparable damage to life and personal integrity, and halt the violations of her human rights. The government’s three-line response on Zhang Zhan’s status merely asserted that ‘her legitimate rights and interests have been fully protected’.

China remains one of the most repressive countries for freedom of speech and press, ranks 178th out of 180 in the 2025 Reporters without Borders (RSF)’s World Press Freedom Index, and is the world’s leading jailer of journalists and writers, according to data from the Committee to Protect Journalists, RSF, and PEN America.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/34459495

The woman who appeared before the Munich Labor Court earlier this year was once considered a star of German scientific research. The researcher, whose name we are shortening to Z., was celebrated, honoured, and in high demand. She revolutionised an entire field; her lectures filled halls, she was showered with praise and prestigious awards. She was among the most frequently cited researchers in Germany and gained international attention as a top talent.

But her employment with the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Luft- und Raumfahrtzentrum, DLR) quietly came to an end almost unnoticed. No one spoke publicly about the reasons for her dismissal. In 2022, Z. lost her prestigious position there, and took legal action.

[...]

It was a suspicion of espionage that led to the DLR’s break with the brilliant researcher from China. A grave allegation that could destroy her career, should it be substantiated.

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At this stage, it is neither possible to confirm nor deny whether Z. was in fact spying for China at the DLR.

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[As an] investigation reveals, Z. maintains extensive connections to the Chinese defence apparatus. In Munich, she orchestrates a network of doctoral candidates and visiting researchers who previously worked at institutions linked to the military in China.

It cannot be ruled out that intelligence from Munich may have flowed into Chinese military technology. Several of the institutions with which Z. collaborated on research projects are involved in China’s notorious satellite programme. Experts suspect that the programme is intended, among other things, to monitor naval movements in the South China Sea – crucial to the territorial dispute over Taiwan.

[...]

At the TUM she is responsible for publicly funded multi-million-euro projects in the field of remote sensing combined with AI or social media data. She develops highly complex algorithms to extract geoinformation from satellite imagery – enabling, for example, the mapping of cities or the tracking of natural disasters.

[...]

According to the official project description, the research findings [of projects led by Z.] would be “invaluable for many scientific, governmental, and planning tasks.” This project supposedly puts Germany in “pole position” in the race for this technology.

In another publicly funded project, Z. explored the extent to which social media posts can be integrated into Earth observation, and delivered impressive findings. Her algorithms help determine, for instance, whether buildings are residential properties or offices. In her interview with the Helmholtz magazine, she says: “We know, for example, that in a residential building, many tweets are sent in the morning and evening, whereas in an office building, they are mainly sent during the day.”

[...]

For those at the TUM, where she remained a professor, the exact circumstances of her dismissal from the DLR were initially unknown. However, some of the roughly 40 members of staff at her department began to prick up their ears. Rumours started to circulate among employees in the department about supposed irregularities on the servers under Z.’s supervision.

It was the period shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Experts assumed that China could attack Taiwan in the near future. In light of global political threats, research collaborations with China were under greater scrutiny than ever before. Since 2022, CORRECTIV has published several investigations revealing how the Chinese state apparatus systematically uses research findings from international collaborations to advance its military technologies. This has been state doctrine in China for years and is referred to as the “military-civil fusion”.

Just over a year ago, a woman from Z.’s immediate professional circle contacted CORRECTIV with an initial tip-off. She wondered whether the research being carried out at the department might be falling into the hands of the Chinese military.

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Z.’s biography is certainly impressive, but her official CV at on the TUM website does not disclose where she got her bachelor’s degree: namely, the National University of Defence Technology (NUDT) in Changsha – China’s most important military institution. It reports directly to the Central Military Commission, the highest military authority in the People’s Republic.

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A “very large volume of data” from the satellite was reportedly transferred to a server under Z.’s supervision. Apparently, there was a “permanent streaming connection” between this server at the TUM and the DLR. While this was, in principle, permitted, the DLR’s counterintelligence team later determined that the server had not been adequately secured. According to their findings, it was not protected by the “TUM’s firewall” and was accessible from anywhere on the internet.

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According to the DLR, a hacker attack on the server occurred in May 2022. The server was allegedly used for so-called Bitcoin mining – where cybercriminals illegally generate cryptocurrency using third-party servers or computers. The DLR concluded that “unauthorised third parties” thereby had access to all data stored on the server – including to the aforementioned sensitive satellite data.

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She [Z.] hired individuals from institutions with military affiliations in China on many occasions, at times bypassing the DLR’s security clearance procedures. According to the DLR’s written statement to the works council, one such case was the original trigger for her dismissal in 2022: Z. is said to have made multiple attempts to continue funding a doctoral student with DLR funds, despite the institution’s rejection of him. Z. responded by saying that “there were never any specific or individual security concerns” about the researcher in questions. This, she argued, amounted to blanket suspicion.

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The new Pope, Leo XIV, should direct an urgent review of the Vatican’s 2018 agreement with the Chinese government that allows Beijing to appoint bishops for government-approved houses of worship, Human Rights Watch said today. He should also press the government to end the persecution of underground churches, clergy, and worshipers.

The Chinese government has continued to install Chinese Communist Party-compliant clergy. AsiaNews reported that during the mourning period for Pope Francis, who died on April 21, 2025, that the Chinese government had moved forward on the appointments of an auxiliary bishop in Shanghai and the bishop of Xinxiang, Henan province.

“Pope Leo XIV has an opportunity to make a fresh start with China to protect the religious freedom of China’s Catholics,” said Maya Wang, associate China director at Human Rights Watch. “The new Pope should press for negotiations that could help improve the right to religious practice for everyone in China.”

The Chinese government has long restricted the country’s estimated 12 million Catholics to worship in official churches under the leadership of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, and has persecuted Catholics who have attended underground “house churches” or pledged allegiance only to the pope. The government has conducted frequent raids on underground churches and arrested unapproved clergy and congregants.

Pope Leo should press the Chinese government to immediately free several Catholic clergy who in recent years have been imprisoned, forcibly disappeared, or subjected to house arrest and other harassment, Human Rights Watch said. They include James Su Zhimin, Augustine Cui Tai, Julius Jia Zhiguo, Joseph Zhang Weizhu, Peter Shao Zhumin, and Thaddeus Ma Daqin, as reported by the Hudson Institute.

The 2018 Provisional Agreement regarding the Appointment of Bishops, the full text of which has never been made public, ended a decades-long standoff over who had the authority to appoint bishops in China. Under the agreement, Beijing proposes future bishops, and the pope has veto power over those appointments.

Since the 2018 agreement, the two parties have agreed on the appointment of 10 bishops, covering about a third of the over 90 dioceses in China that remained without a bishop. The Vatican has never exercised its veto power, however, even when the Chinese government violated the agreement by unilaterally appointing bishops in 2022 and 2023, appointments that Pope Francis later accepted.

In a 2024 news statement renewing the 2018 agreement, the Vatican stated that it aimed to “benefit … the Catholic Church in China and the Chinese people as a whole.” The Holy See and the Chinese government have renewed the agreement three times.

The Chinese government, which restricts all religious practice in China to five officially recognized religions, regulates official church business and retains control over personnel appointments, publications, finances, and seminary applications.