On 4 February 2022, the opening day of the Winter Olympics in Beijing and only twenty days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China and Russia declared a ‘no limits’ partnership that ‘surpasses an alliance.’ Given China’s and Russia’s geopolitical ambitions and boundaries, a tighter alignment between the two countries could significantly change the power structure … more
With no internal combustion engine and no burning of fossil fuels, electric vehicles (EVs) — running solely on batteries — are coming in their billions to electrify mobility. By 2035, at least half of all global passenger vehicle sales will be for EVs, and the proportion will keep increasing. The roadmap for the global energy … more
The furore surrounding the chilling internet video of ‘Xiaohuamei’ 小花梅 or ‘Little Plum Blossom’, the chained woman of Jiangsu, had barely died down when a restaurant surveillance camera captured another disturbing vision of violent and misogynist behaviour that stunned the world and once again put China’s gender relations under the spotlight. It is 2:40 am … more
Xi Jinping, the paramount leader of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), toured eastern Xinjiang on a four-day ‘investigative tour’ 考察调研 in mid-July — his first visit to the Uyghur Region since 2014. On the surface, the trip and its public messaging do not appear to differ much from visits by previous general secretaries of … more
Many of us are familiar with the concept of cancel culture in the West. Merriam-Webster defines it as ‘the practice or tendency of engaging in mass cancelling as a way of expressing disapproval and exerting social pressure’. Though not without controversy, at the core of Western cancel culture is the desire of the general public … more
In the chilly days before the Lunar New Year of 2022, a video began circulating on Chinese social media of a woman standing alone in an outdoor shed wearing a thin pink sweater. She is shackled to the wall by a chain around her neck. The man behind the camera asks if she is cold, … more
