In my chapter for this year’s China Story Yearbook, ‘AI Dreams and Authoritarian Nightmares’, I explored China’s use of artificial intelligence for public security. Writing that chapter less than six months ago, I thought that a major, nationwide crisis would demonstrate how far the Chinese Communist Party would be willing to go to deploy these … more
China Neican is a weekly column of the China Story blog that brings you concise, timely, and policy-focused analysis. Neican 内参 or “internal reference” are limited circulation reports only for the eyes of high-ranking officials in China, dealing with topics deemed too sensitive for public consumption. But rest assured, everyone is welcome to read what we write. … more
Some Australian academics and commentators have accused Chinese international students of threatening freedom of speech in Australian classrooms by attempting to shut down discussions on controversial topics, such as on the status of Taiwan, and human rights in China. Yet others claim that these students bring much-needed diversity and different points of view into the … more
China’s laws on emergency response and epidemic control are relatively complete. The laws deliberately leave room for the flexible exercise of powers by local governments to respond to the epidemic. However, it also leaves room for the misuse of powers. Further, while government and departmental orders are quick and effective in times of emergency, the … more
With rising tension between Beijing and the West, China needs friends now more than ever. But repeated racially-motivated discrimination against Africans in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou are undermining decades of China’s efforts to build a reservoir of diplomatic goodwill across Africa. Spike in attacks on Africans in Guangzhou Anxiety and anger are rising … more
Despite much of the country still being under coronavirus restrictions, China has doubled down on its’ national roll-out of fifth-generation (5G) wireless connectivity, with central government direction to ‘forcefully advance 5G network construction’. With economies around the world hobbled by the pandemic, China’s state-led drive to deploy 5G is stoking fears that next-generation telecommunications and … more
For several decades, a ‘grand bargain’ has underpinned Australia-China ties. Recognising economic opportunities exist alongside diplomatic friction points, both sides sought to maintain a separation between the political and economic domains of the relationship. But with the recent outbreak of a COVID-19 dispute, which has led to a bilateral trade war over barley and beef, … more
China Neican is a weekly column of the China Story blog that brings you concise, timely, and policy-focused analysis. Neican 内参 or “internal reference” are limited circulation reports only for the eyes of high-ranking officials in China, dealing with topics deemed too sensitive for public consumption. But rest assured, everyone is welcome to read what we write. … more
The doyen of Australian journalists covering China, the New York Times’ correspondent Chris Buckley — a doctor of philosophy from the Australian National University — has just been booted out of the People’s Republic. Married with a student daughter, he returned early this week to Sydney. Tragically, the New York Times’ most distinguished China correspondent … more
Spitting. Name-calling. Physical assaults. The outbreak of COVID-19 has coincided with a dramatic escalation in racially motivated incidents towards people of Asian descent around the world. US President Donald Trump has fuelled these attacks with his strident criticisms of China’s handling of the pandemic, unsubstantiated claims the virus originated in a lab in Wuhan and … more
