NGOs in China have helped the government provide covid-related relief

Editor’s note: Some of our covid-19 coverage is free for readers of The Economist Today, our daily newsletter. For more stories and our pandemic tracker, see our hub THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY winces at the term “non-governmental organisation”: to officials, it smacks of dissent. Search for news about NGOs and their response to covid-19 on Baidu,...

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Under a new national-security law, Hong Kong is already a changed city

HONG KONGERS had long worried that the Communist Party would transform the territory by stealth into just another Chinese city. In the past few days, armed with a new national-security law which it imposed on Hong Kong on June 30th, it has been doing so brazenly. From the appointment of a party commissar to work with the chief executive, to the pulling...

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A Sino-American bond, forged by Chinese students, is in peril

THE FIRST Chinese graduate from an American university, Yung Wing, deemed his college years the great adventure of his life. Alas, his graduation from Yale in 1854, sponsored by missionaries who spotted his talents as a boy in rural Guangdong, was a high point. Soon political mistrust and prejudice, both in America and China, filled his life with setbacks....

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China’s devoted, combative celebrity fan clubs

“THE UNTAMED”, a costume martial-arts drama, is one of the most-watched television series in China. Since its online release last year it has been viewed 8bn times. Its heart-throb star, Xiao Zhan (pictured), has gained a legion of fans. In October so many of them crowded an airport in Beijing to see him that they delayed a flight. In February Mr...

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A new national-security bill to intimidate Hong Kong

A SENIOR CHINESE official called it a “birthday gift” for Hong Kong. It was a chilling choice of words for the biggest blow to the territory’s freedoms since Britain handed it back to China in 1997. Close to midnight on June 30th, on the eve of official celebrations of the handover’s anniversary, China imposed a draconian national-security bill on...

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The West cannot force China to read its interests differently

IN RECENT DAYS, as China prepared to turn Hong Kong into a cowed simulacrum of a world city—a shiny stage-set of modernity, run from the shadows by the mainland’s hard men—Chaguan asked Western envoys in Beijing how their countries might respond. Several chose to hear and answer a different question, namely, how might their government make China change...

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China is secretive about its new national-security law for Hong Kong

HONG KONGERS have fretted for years about when and how national-security law might be applied in the territory. They will soon find out. In May China announced it would enact a bill for Hong Kong concerning crimes such as subversion and secession, without referring to the city’s legislature. Lawmakers in Beijing are now drafting the act in hugger-mugger....

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To China’s rulers, the cupidity of officials is a political crisis

IN CHINESE, AN official sacked for corruption is said to have “fallen off a horse”. The phrase rings with the age-old satisfaction of watching the high and mighty plunge face-first into mud. Eight years after its launch by President Xi Jinping, the largest anti-corruption campaign in Chinese history remains wildly popular, notably because it has unhorsed...

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Donald Trump is not the only leader who fails to stand up for the Uighurs

IT WAS A rare spark of hope for China’s Uighur ethnic group, which forms nearly half the population of the far western region of Xinjiang. On June 17th President Donald Trump signed the Uighur Human Rights Policy Act. It aims to punish Chinese officials for human-rights abuses in Xinjiang, where since 2017 perhaps 1m people, including about one in ten...

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An outbreak in Beijing of covid-19 is causing alarm

“THE SAFETY and stability of the capital has a direct impact on the overall work of the party and government.” So Xi Jinping, China’s leader, reminded officials in February, as he urged them to pay particular attention to keeping Beijing free of covid-19. For most of the past eight weeks, city officials have had reason to feel chuffed, with no new cases...

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