China-Policies & politics

1. Simon Cheng: Hongkonger who was held in mainland China optimistic he can stay in Britain

   Former British consulate employee Simon Cheng Man-kit has said he expects the UK government to finalise details of his “protection arrangement” by June, as authorities in London assessed the Hongkonger’s claim that he was tortured while under Chinese custody last year.Cheng, 28, said he was “optimistic” about the prospect of being able to stay in Britain when he addressed a protest in support of dissidents in Hong Kong and Xinjiang outside the Chinese embassy in London on Sunday.Previously a…

2. Chinese Communist Party’s ‘chauvinism’ a threat to peace: Japanese counterpart

   The Japanese Communist Party has moved to distance itself from its erstwhile ideological ally in Beijing, criticising the Chinese Communist Party’s “great-power chauvinism” and accusing it of committing human rights abuses and being a threat to regional peace. The JCP used its five-day convention in Atami, southwest of Tokyo, to redraw its party platform for the first time in 16 years, with the changes designed to differentiate it from the Chinese party. The revised platform, unveiled on…

3. Hong Kong, Guangdong, Macau to join forces to reduce carbon emissions in Greater Bay Area

   Support for China’s goal to eliminate carbon emissions in the Greater Bay Area by 2050 will be provided by a new advisory alliance combining governments and regulators from Hong Kong, Guangdong and Macau.The Greater Bay Area Green Finance Alliance, which will be launched in Guangzhou in May, will be funded by the Hong Kong Green Finance Association, the Guangdong Green Finance Committee, the Shenzhen Green Finance Committee, and the Macau Banking Association.The alliance will aim to make market…

4. Philippines changes visa rules for Chinese travellers ahead of Lunar New Year after spike in crime blamed on mainlanders

   The Philippines has scrapped a special six-month visa for Chinese travellers ahead of the Lunar New Year celebrations in a bid to clamp down on a crime wave blamed on visitors from the mainland. The decision, which comes as millions of Chinese prepare to travel in what is often termed the “world’s biggest migration”, comes amid a spike in crime that President Rodrigo Duterte last week blamed on the rise of offshore gambling operators employing Chinese nationals. In one widely reported incident…

5. Beijing’s dubious claims undermine Indonesia’s role as South China Sea’s honest broker

   This year Indonesia and China will celebrate 70 years of diplomatic relations. But the journey has not always been smooth sailing. When Indonesia broke off diplomatic ties in 1967, the relationship went into a deep freeze.Even when ties were restored in 1990, it took more than a decade until the two sides could sign a Strategic Partnership in 2005 (upgraded to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in 2013).Since then, Indonesia and China have enjoyed closer economic and diplomatic engagements…

6. China ‘will continue to oppose Taiwan independence’ after Tsai Ing-wen’s election victory

   China will oppose Taiwan independence resolutely while continuing to support the “one country, two systems” model, the senior official in charge of cross-strait affairs said on Sunday, a week after President Tsai Ing-wen’s landslide election victory.Wang Yang, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, said Beijing would work to strengthen cross-strait ties but act against separatism, according to state news agency Xinhua.“The situation across the Taiwan Strait will be more complex and grim,…

7. China coronavirus: Beijing breaks its silence, but only to ‘deny rumours’

   China’s central government has broken its silence on the Wuhan pneumonia outbreak with an online post aimed at “defying the rumours” surrounding the spread of the new coronavirus but without providing any new facts or figures.In an information poster reproduced on social media and its own website on Saturday night, the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said the new virus was not Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome), which killed more than 700 people around the world in 2003…

8. Taiwan election: Hong Kong won it, Beijing lost it

   When it comes to crucial elections for the highest office, there is no place in the world where outside factors take precedence over local issues – other than in Taiwan.Mainland China’s increasingly hawkish attitude towards the island, Hong Kong’s anti-Beijing protests, and Washington’s support of the democratic aspirations in those two Chinese communities have all contributed to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and her ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) landslide victory in the just…

9. Beijing should tell Taiwan and Hong Kong what it has to gain from them

   The US president is not that keen on the government of Taiwan. In fact, he is about to cut the island loose and leave it to the Chinese Communist Party to do what they will with it. Beijing looks certain to be the deciding power on the island. Then, it scores an own goal, making a move that alienates much of the rest of the world and, perversely, saves Taiwan’s autonomous government. Not the story of the past year, culminating in Tsai Ing-wen’s decisive victory over Han Kuo-yu in last week’s…

10. Donald Trump really is Xi Jinping’s friend. The phase one US-China trade deal proves it

    Since Donald Trump became the American president in January 2017, he has frequently called his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping “a friend”, even throughout the on-off trade war between the world’s two largest economies over the past 18 months.At the ceremony on Wednesday when he and Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He inked the phase one trade agreement, Trump, true to form, called Xi “a very, very good friend of mine” and promised to visit China “in the not-too-distant future”.Xi appears to have…