1. Solomon Islands In the Solomon Islands last week, anti-government protests broke out, with protestors burning Chinatown in the capital Honiara. The Solomon Islands Government requested help from Australia, which sent police and military personnel. Prime Minister Sogavare blamed unspecified “foreign powers” for encouraging this civil unrest. It is unclear which foreign powers he refers … more
1. History resolution At the recent 6th Plenum, the Party Central Committee adopted a resolution on history. The Party made this document public last Tuesday (November 16). We told you that the 6th Plenum communiqué lionised Xi and whitewashed history. The text of the resolution confirms this assessment. The resolution praises the Party’s achievements, downplays … more
1. US-China relations Summit Biden and Xi held a virtual summit [US readout | PRC readout (in Chinese)]. While the US readout is only four paragraphs, the Chinese readout ran to 20 paragraphs, mostly paraphrasing Xi. Both readouts are very polite, couched in diplomatic rhetoric 外交辞令. Such diplomatic rhetoric has been helpfully translated by Chinese … more
1. 6th Plenum: outcomes The 6th Plenum concluded on Thursday with a communiqué [Chinese | English] that held little surprises: Xi was lionised and history whitewashed. We put together a bilingual side-by-side version of the communiqué for those of you preferring to work with both languages: Click here to download the PDF The most significant … more
1. Sixth Plenum preview The Sixth Plenum is currently underway in Beijing and will run until Thursday. For background on plenums and how they fit into China’s political system, see our explainers (written | video) from last year. The outcome of this Plenum is important to both policies in China as well as Xi’s prospects … more
1. UN The UN system is very important to China, more so than for countries such as Australia. Last week, Xi marked China (PRC)’s 50th anniversary at the UN with a speech. In it, he called the UN resolution to recognise the PRC as one that “restored the legitimate membership at the UN” 恢复联合国合法席位. “China” … more
1. Climate policy The Chinese Government is getting very serious about climate change. A few days ago (just before the Glasgow Climate Change Conference), the Central Committee and the State Council jointly released Working Guidance For Carbon Dioxide Peaking And Carbon Neutrality In Full And Faithful Implementation Of The New Development Philosophy 关于完整准确全面贯彻新发展理念做好碳达峰碳中和工作的意见 [English | … more
1. Chinese language media in Australia Two recently published papers shed some insights on Chinese-language media in Australia: Waning Sun’s journal article “Chinese-language digital news media in Australia” published in June in Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies and Fan Yang’s analysis “Translating tension” published last week by the Lowy Institute. Sun focused her … more
1. Hostage exchange Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor were finally released this week, after being arrested and detained in China for almost three years. The release of these two Canadians occurred at the same time as the release by Canada of Meng Wanzhou 孟晚舟, the CFO of Huawei and the daughter of Huawei’s founder. This … more
1. English language in China China may be de-prioritising education requirements on the English language, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Last month, the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission issued a notice on measures to reduce the burden of students and to enhance comprehensive all-round education (素质教育 rather than exam-oriented education 应试教育). One of the … more
