Hong Kong’s big housing plan faces little resistance

WHEN HONG KONG’S legislature was stripped last month of an opposition after the government expelled four pro-democracy lawmakers and the remaining 15 resigned in sympathy, many in the territory feared this would allow the passage of controversial bills with a minimum of critical scrutiny. In the coming weeks, one proposed law is likely to prove that...

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Joshua Wong is jailed

JOSHUA WONG, one of the best-known faces of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, was sentenced on December 2nd to more than 13 months in prison for his role in a protest last year. Mr Wong, pictured, has been riling the Chinese Communist Party for over a decade with his activism. Agnes Chow and Ivan Lam, co-leaders of his now-disbanded group, Demosisto,...

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A new law would unshackle China’s coastguard, far from its coast

THE ZHAOTOU-CLASS cutter may be a lowly coastguard ship. But it is no pushover. At 12,000 tonnes, it is the world’s largest vessel built for such use. It looms over most American or Japanese destroyers. Its roomy deck accommodates two helicopters, a 76mm gun and a thicket of other weaponry. China has two of them. One is deployed on its east coast. The...

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How China’s bullying could backfire

CHINA BULLIES other countries because it works. Once told that they have crossed a “red line” by harming China’s interests or calling out its misdeeds, many governments crumble swiftly. Others fold after suffering months of threats, trade boycotts and cancelled official meetings. But in China’s long experience, almost all—even sometimes America—climb...

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Officials in China abhor money-worship. A dating show glorifies it

FEW CHINESE television programmes command as loyal a fan base as “If You Are The One”, a matchmaking show now in its tenth year. In its early days, some 50m viewers tuned in to each episode—an audience second only to the evening news bulletin produced by the state broadcaster. Today “If You Are The One” is the sixth-most-watched show in China. But this...

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The first lesson of doing business in China: the state comes first

FOUR DECADES after China emerged from Maoist isolation, mystery surrounds some big questions about its rulers’ views of the world. Start with a topical one: what are the true feelings of China’s leader, President Xi Jinping, towards Western-style shareholder capitalism, with its emphasis on free competition, transparency, separation between ownership...

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As China’s power waxes, the West’s study of it is waning

AMERICA’S PRESIDENT-ELECT, Joe Biden, says China is his country’s “biggest competitor”. Yet China’s centrality in the calculations of foreign-policy experts in Washington and throughout the West is hardly matched by the interest shown in academia. Despite China’s efforts to promote interest in the language—and a surge of attention to it in Western schools...

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China’s ties with America could be tested by North Korea

OPTIMISTS ABOUT American relations with China should consider the following scenario. At some point in early 2021, perhaps as President Joe Biden is sworn into office, hand on Bible, North Korea sees an incentive in testing a potent new weapon. In a worst case, that may mean launching one of the monstrous intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs)...

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Joe Biden’s China policy will be a mix of Trump’s and Obama’s

EARLY IN HIS campaign for the presidency, Joe Biden rejected the notion that China was much of a worry. He argued that no leader in the world would trade the challenges facing China for their own. “China’s going to eat our lunch? Come on, man,” Mr Biden scoffed. “I mean, you know, they’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what? They’re not competition...

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Obama-era veterans will shape Joe Biden’s China policy

SEVEN YEARS ago Susan Rice, then Barack Obama’s national security adviser, said America wanted “a new model of major power relations” with China. Her words echoed a term used by China’s president, Xi Jinping—“a new type of great-power relations”—to describe what he hoped would be a more accommodating American view of his country. Within a year Ms Rice...

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