China

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International Labour Organization (ILO) flags 'full extent of forced labour' in China's Xinjiang and Tibet

The ILO report 2025 states that forced labour extends beyond internment camps to include long-term imprisonment and large-scale labour transfers into industries such as solar panel production, agriculture, and textiles.

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Information relating to forced labour of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in China [...] were raised as observations predominantly by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and UN bodies such as the UN Human Rights Council (OHCHR). The report specifically highlights that forced labour is not confined to internment camps but includes long-term imprisonment and large-scale labour transfers. It has been rejected by a spokesperson at the Chinese Embassy in Washington.

Summary:

Two major systems of coercive work placement coexist in Xinjiang.

• Firstly, a system of arbitrary detention for Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities suspected of endangering social stability and national security (the “Vocational Skills Training and Education Centers” or VSTEC system) which since 2020 has been replaced with institutionalized long-term detention in regular prisons following a formal legal process, notably of prominent intellectuals and continued forced placement of “released” detainees in labour-intensive industries such as textiles and electronics.
• Secondly, a system of transferring “surplus” rural workers from low-income traditional livelihoods pursuits into industries such as the processing of raw materials for the production of solar panels, batteries and other vehicle parts; seasonal agricultural work; and seafood processing. In recent years, based on an intensified campaign of investigating and monitoring the poverty status of millions of rural households, the authorities had raised targets leading to increased cross-provincial labour transfers.

At the same time, Chinese local authorities had “actively guided” ethnic smallholder farmers to transfer their agricultural plots to large state-led cooperatives, thus “liberating” “surplus” rural workers for transfer into manufacturing or the service sector.

[...] In the last decade, similar policies have been pursued in the Tibet Autonomous Region (Tibet). These policies would apply coercive methods such as military-style vocational training methods and the involvement of political cadres to have Tibetan nomads and farmers swap their traditional livelihoods for jobs providing measurable cash income in industries such as road construction, mining or food-processing, thereby diluting “the negative influence of religion.” Placement incentives to local labour brokers and companies had facilitated a gradual increase in the labour transfer of rural workers to reach 630,000 workers in 2024.

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The United States has reiterated its opposition to any forced change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio stressing that Washington does not seek conflict while standing by its long-standing policies on Taiwan, a recent report carried by the island nation’s Central News Agency (CNA) said.

His comments come as Taiwan continues to face the persistent threat of a Chinese invasion. In an interview broadcast on the social media platform X, Rubio reaffirmed Washington’s stance, stating: "We are against any sort of compelled, forced change of status. That's been our policy; that remains our policy."

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Meanwhile, in another demonstration of EU recognition of Taiwan, a delegation from the European Parliament (EP) arrived in Taiwan earlier in the week to mark the first visit by EP lawmakers in 2025.

The group, led by Ivars Ījabs, a vice-president of the Renew Europe political group from Latvia, was scheduled to meet Taiwan’s Vice-President Hsiao Bi-khim and other senior officials during their five-day trip.

The delegation also includes Hannes Heide of Austria, Arkadiusz Mularczyk from Poland, and Vladimir Prebilič from Slovenia, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

During their visit, the EP members were scheduled to engage with government officials, lawmakers, as well as a number of local NGOs during which time they would be discussing Taiwan-EU relations in addition to regional geopolitics, and technological innovation a statement by the Ministry said.

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Taiwan on Wednesday dispatched naval, air and land forces in response to China's "live-fire" drills held off the coast of the self-ruled island, its Defense Ministry said, condemning the unexpected exercise.

China's People's Liberation Army "has blatantly violated international norms by unilaterally designating a drill zone 40 NM off the coast of Kaohsiung and Pingtung, claiming to conduct live-fire exercises without prior warning," Taipei said.

Detecting 32 aircraft around Taiwan as part of the Chinese drill, Taiwan's military said it responded by sending forces to "monitor, alert and respond appropriately."

"This move not only caused a high degree of danger to the safety of international flights and vessels at sea, but is also a blatant provocation to regional security and stability," the ministry said.

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China has time and again threatened to use force to establish control over Taiwan.

The self-ruled island is a major point of contention between Washington and Beijing. While the US is legally required to provide arms to Taiwan for its defense, it has remained ambiguous about sending its own military if required.

Archived

East Turkestan — or Xinjiang, as it is known in Chinese — is a border region where ethnic minorities are subjected to the Chinese regime’s stifling repression.

Subjected to arbitrary arrests and forced labor, sterilizations to torture, more than one million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other minorities are estimated to have been locked up in so-called “re-education” camps and prisons in the region over the last decade, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

While China contends it is fighting ‘terrorists,’ to others it seems the objective is to annihilate any cultural and religious particularism which could be seen as an impediment to the ethnic purity component of the “Chinese dream.”

The United Nations has warned that what is happening in the region may amount to “crimes against humanity,” while others, including the US State Department, have gone further, labeling it a genocide in 2021, especially due to measures intended to reduce the number of children being born.

This repression is not confined to China, but takes on a transnational dimension: even beyond the country’s borders, Beijing persecutes those who have been designated as its political opponents. In Central Asia, the former Soviet republics, heavily economically dependent on their Eastern neighbor, are home to a pervasive interference that extends the repression.

China has built hundreds of detention centers along the border of its Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and the eastern frontiers of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, making those countries a common landing spot for refugees fleeing Chinese repression.

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The region between China and Kazakhstan had become a border of tears, where many families mourn the loved ones who have never returned from the Chinese camps, and where the survivors of the camps who managed to make it across the border have carried with them the trauma of the experience.

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Because the repression in Xinjiang is still ongoing, a single wrong word can lead to deportation, imprisonment, or death for witnesses and their relatives if they are identified by Chinese or Kazakh intelligence.

In those conditions, most survivors are terrified to be acknowledged as such, and not likely to speak to journalists. Building a network of contacts within persecuted communities therefore requires a great deal of time, caution, and trust.

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Safeguard Defenders [a NGO focused on human rights in China] is releasing its new handbook ‘Missing in China’ today in response to the growing number of foreign citizens arbitrarily detained in the authoritarian country.

The handbook is a combination of the organization’s extensive research in China’s repressive judicial system and the first-hand experiences of former detainees and their families. It offers readers with crucial insights and practical advice to deal with the detention of a loved one in China and aims to help them become the best possible advocates for their family member.

‘Missing in China’ is available to download here in English, Chinese and Japanese.

It includes information on what to expect from China’s law enforcement and judicial processes, how to retain a lawyer, how your country and consular services can assist, ways to engage with media and other possible allies, as well as other practical information.

While the majority of detentions of foreigners in China go unreported, some of the names that have made the news since 2018 include American Jeff Harper (2020); Australians Yang Hengjun (2019 to present) and Cheng Lei (2020 to 2023); Briton Ian Stones (likely 2018 to 2024); Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor (2018 to 2021); and Japanese Iwatani Nobu (2019).

In recent years, China has amended its counter-espionage and state secrets laws, markedly expanding both the scope of activities considered illegal and the ambiguity surrounding their interpretation. China has used these laws to target more than a dozen Japanese nationals and, for the first time last year, a South Korean worker in the country.

The authoritarian practice of using foreign citizens as bargaining chips in international relations became of such concern that Canada launched the Declaration Against Arbitrary Detention in State-to-State Relations on 15 February 2021. As of February 2025, 80 countries have signed on to the Declaration.

Yet, at the same time, those same nations often fail to provide adequate warnings to their citizens. While China was clearly on their minds when the Declaration against Arbitrary Detention in State-to-State Relations was drafted, most of the signatory country’s travel advisories do not reflect such a risk assessment.

Lawyer Chow Hang-tung was charged in 2020 for participating in a peaceful vigil commemorating protesters killed in the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, and charged again in 2021 after she asked people on social media to light candles in memory of the victims. She was jailed for 22 months for daring to commemorate their lives.

Chow also faces a potential 10-year prison sentence for “inciting subversion” under the NSL [China's National Security Law] over her role as former leader of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which organised the city’s annual Tiananmen candlelight vigil for 30 years.

Despite her imprisonment, Chow has continued to use her legal knowledge to defend rights, including in 2022 to secure the lifting of reporting restrictions on bail hearings. Most recently, Chow mounted a legal challenge to rules that require women – but not men – to wear long trousers year-round in Hong Kong prisons, where temperatures regularly exceed 30 degrees Celsius in summer. In the past, Chow has suffered retaliation for such advocacy, including repeated periods of solitary confinement.

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Archived

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A new analysis of data on scanners drawn from AidData’s Global Chinese Development Finance Dataset reveals that China’s provision of aid and credit for the dissemination of customs inspection equipment abroad—from providers like Nuctech, a Chinese partially state-owned company—is extensive. Despite increasing scrutiny of Chinese equipment used in critical infrastructure like ports, scanners provided by Chinese companies and financed by Chinese donors and lenders are still being widely distributed around the globe. China’s global scanner distribution poses potential national security risks at global seaports, airports, and border crossings.

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China’s provision of customs inspection equipment is far-reaching: at least 65 low- and middle-income countries received this equipment financed via grants and loans from China between 2000 and 2022. The scanners can be found in locations ranging from Serbia and Albania in Eastern Europe, to Cambodia and Laos in Southeast Asia, to countries in Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Pacific. Over the past two decades, China provided at least $1.67 billion (constant 2021 USD) of aid and credit for customs inspection activities in recipient countries.

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Donations and zero-interest loans appear to be a deliberate business strategy of Chinese government entities to facilitate the acquisition, installation, and use of customs inspection equipment produced by Chinese companies. Of the 108 customs inspection equipment-related activities tracked, 89 (or 82.4%) constituted donations, with the remainder provided through loans from Chinese agencies for recipients to purchase scanners from China. 44 of these donations were financed directly by China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM).

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Nuctech Company Ltd. (同方威视技术股份有限公司) is one of the key companies involved in the provision of global inspection equipment, ranging from cargo and vehicle inspection to personnel screening. Its competitors include U.S.-based companies such as Rapiscan Systems, L3Harris Technologies, and Leidos, as well as European-based companies like Smiths Detection and Thales Group, among others.

Nuctech is a partially state-owned company that emerged from Tsinghua University in the 1990s. Its parent company is Tsinghua Tongfang (清华同方股份有限公司), a state-owned enterprise. China National Nuclear Corporation (中国核工业集团公司), an energy and defense conglomerate controlled by China’s State Council, is the controlling stakeholder of Tsinghua Tongfang and holds a 21 percent ownership stake in Nuctech. Nuctech is further connected to the state, as the company’s former chairman in the early 2000s now serves in the central government.

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Archived

China has revised its policy on the administration of Tibetan Buddhist temples, focusing especially on Sinicization of Tibetan Buddhism with “a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation”, according to a Dharamshala-based Tibetan rights group.

China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs issued a revised version of its “Measures for the Administration of Tibetan Buddhist Temples” on Dec 1, 2024 – after being adopted on Sep 1 – and it came into force at the beginning of last month, said the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy Feb 14.

It said a major revision made in Article 4, which outlines the ideological framework within which the Communist Party of China (CPC) requires Tibetan monasteries to function, states:

“Temples and clergy should love the motherland, support the leadership of the Communist Party of China, support the socialist system, abide by the Constitution, laws, regulations, rules, and relevant provisions on the management of religious affairs, practice core socialist values, forge a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation, adhere to the direction of the Sinicization of religion, uphold the principle of independence and self-management, safeguard national unity, ethnic unity, religious harmony, and social stability, and promote the adaptation of Tibetan Buddhism to socialist society.”

Archived version

China's ageing population threatens key Beijing policy goals for the coming decade of boosting domestic consumption and reining in ballooning debt, posing a severe challenge to the economy's long-term growth prospects.

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"China's age structure change will slow down economic growth," said Xiujian Peng,  senior research fellow at the Centre of Policy Studies (CoPS) at Victoria University in Melbourne.

In the next 10 years, about 300 million people currently aged 50 to 60 - China's largest demographic group, equivalent to almost the entire US population - are set to leave the workforce at a time when pension budgets are already stretched.

The state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences sees the pension system running out of money by 2035, with about a third of the country's provincial-level jurisdictions running pension budget deficits, according to finance ministry data.

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Chinese society has traditionally expected children to support their parents financially as they age and often by living together to care for them.

But as in many Western countries, rapid urbanisation has shifted young people to bigger cities and away from their parents, prompting a rising number of seniors to rely on self care or government payments.

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INNOVATION WOES

China saw a rise in births after ditching the one-child policy but the recovery was far off pre-implementation levels and also short-lived. Fewer children were born in each of the past eight years, including 2023.

Demographers say the number of children in any economy is directly correlated with domestic consumption.

Archived

An Australian man says an extortion attempt at an electronics repair store landed him in a Beijing jail, where he was forced to confess to stealing his own phone.

Australian Matthew Radalj was running a clothing business out of Beijing in January 2020 when he left his apartment one morning to collect his phone from an electronics market, where he had dropped it off days earlier for repairs.

What happened next would land him in jail for nearly the next five years, the victim, in his retelling of events, of an extortion attempt and a justice system that convicts 99 per cent of those who come before it.

Under what he says were torturous conditions, he would be forced to confess to robbery charges for stealing his own phone and cash and to violently resisting arrest.

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Each morning, the inmates would be forced to march into the factory to the tune of Chinese Communist Party propaganda “red” songs. The lyrics are burnt into his brain: Wo ai ni zhongguo.

“It means ‘I love you, China’,” says Radalj. “The Chinese system is designed to extract as much suffering from you as possible. At a certain point, you’re not even human any more.”

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Radalj says when he arrived at the electronics market on January 3, 2020, the shop owner, a man called Wei, had more than doubled the agreed price to fix his smashed yellow iPhone 11 and put a new deal on the table. It was now going to cost him 3500 yuan ($767), but Wei’s friend would buy the phone for 1000 yuan and settle his debt. Radalj rejected the deal, paid the original price, took his phone and left.

But as he was exiting the market, he was set upon by security guards carrying pepper spray and electric batons. He fought back, he says, grabbing the pepper spray and using it on one of the security officers and stunning another with a baton he seized in the brawl before being chased into the street, where he was subdued by a mob.

“I had to basically fight for my life,” he says.

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After his arrest, Radalj says he endured cruel treatment at a detention centre until he agreed to sign a “leniency document” confessing to the robbery charges. He was left in rooms for long stretches with static playing through speakers, and he was forced to strip naked and go outside in Beijing’s sub-zero winter. For 10 months, he had no access to money, meaning he couldn’t buy a toothbrush, toilet paper or underwear, nor could he call his family or friends, who were becoming increasingly worried.

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Radalj says he was held in Beijing Number 3 Detention Centre for 504 days before being transferred to Beijing Number 2 Prison, where he spent 1230 days.

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Radalj’s story is an apparent example of how a confluence of circumstance, harsh laws and policing, and geopolitical jostling can conspire in a devastating way to leave foreigners at the mercy of China’s unflinching legal system.

His situation was worsened by the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic, during which the prison was sealed off. It also made consular access difficult and soured the Australia-China relationship during the Morrison government era.

“Even in the police station, they were saying, ‘You’re Australian. This is China. Australia is not our friend’,” Radalj says.

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Archived

Here is the study (pdf).

TLDR:

• Recent suspicious activities conducted by the merchant vessels Shunxing-39 and Vasili Shukshin in the vicinity of Taiwan in early 2025 suggest possible collaboration between Chinese and Russian merchant ships related to the reconnaissance and sabotage of undersea communications cables that connect Taiwan to the outside world.
• Such activities follow from suspected undersea infrastructure sabotage operations conducted by Chinese merchant vessels in the Baltic Sea in 2023–2024, with strong indications of Russian assistance and coordination.
• Taken as a whole, this string of incidents suggests an increasing willingness by Moscow and Beijing to collaborate on maritime sabotage operations—include on attacks on third-party targets.

Taiwan's government warns its people of visiting China, Hong Kong or Macau. Former government employees, people who have participated in civil movements or criticized China, and those working on sensitive technologies are considered at high risk of detention or interrogation.

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The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday.

Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview.

On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia.

The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential repercussions for family and friends of the accused, Chiu said.

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Those who work in [Taiwanese] government agencies or institutions are often questioned on arrival in China for 30 minutes to four hours, and their suitcases and laptops might be searched, he said, adding that academics who support the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) are not exempt from such checks.

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[Edit typo.]

The Philippine Coast Guard condemned "dangerous" manoeuvres by a Chinese Navy helicopter Tuesday as it flew within three metres (10 feet) of a surveillance flight carrying a group of journalists over the contested Scarborough Shoal.

An AFP photographer on the flight described seeing the helicopter tail the plane before drawing near the left wing, close enough to see personnel aboard filming them.

The helicopter had been "as close as three metres" to the fisheries bureau aircraft, the coast guard said in a statement. The plane had been flying about 213 metres above the water on a mission to observe Chinese vessels in the area.

"Around 0839 hours, a People's Liberation Army Navy (PLA-Navy) helicopter ... performed dangerous flight maneuvers towards the BFAR aircraft. This reckless action posed a serious risk to the safety of the pilots and passengers during the MDA flight," the coast guard statement said.

The Scarborough Shoal -- a triangular chain of reefs and rocks in the South China Sea -- has been a flashpoint between the countries since China seized it from the Philippines in 2012.

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In December, the Philippines said the Chinese coast guard fired water cannon and "sideswiped" a government fisheries department vessel.

Manila released a video appearing to show a Chinese coast guard ship firing a torrent of water at the BRP Datu Pagbuaya.

Other footage apparently taken from the Philippine ship showed its crew shouting "Collision! Collision!" as the much larger Chinese vessel nears its right-hand side before crashing into it.

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The Chinese government has increasingly imposed arbitrary restrictions on people’s internationally protected right to leave the country, Human Rights Watch said today.

Chinese authorities are requiring citizens from locales they broadly consider to be high risks for online fraud or “unlawful” emigration to submit additional paperwork and obtain approval from multiple government offices during passport application processes. Those not meeting these cumbersome requirements are often denied passports. The government has long restricted people’s access to passports in areas where Tibetans and Uyghurs predominantly live.

“While many Chinese citizens enjoy international travel, the right to leave China appears to be restricted for growing categories of people throughout the country,” said Maya Wang, associate China director at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities are going beyond existing restrictions on Tibetans and Uyghurs to limit the travel of people throughout China under the guise of anti-crime campaigns.”

All Chinese citizens can apply for “ordinary passports” (因私普通护照) with an identity card. However, in recent years, police agencies responsible for issuing passports have increasingly subjected applicants from dozens of locales to a more cumbersome process. This conclusion is based on official complaints filed by those affected as well as social media posts by residents, travel agents, and overseas employment agencies in those locales.

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Archived

Here is the study The Silent Withdrawal (pdf).

In The Silent Withdrawal, Dian Zhong - research fellow at the Hoover History Lab specializing in the comparative political economy of development with a focus on gender dynamics - reveals a striking reversal in China’s once-celebrated gender equality, as women increasingly withdraw from the workforce despite higher education levels. Highlighting the policy missteps and the unintended consequences of pro-natalist measures, alongside the transformation of feminism from state collaboration to a force of resistance, Zhong calls for bold reforms to reconcile women’s economic empowerment with demographic challenges, steering China toward a more inclusive future.

Key takeaways:

• A Quiet Crisis in China’s Workforce: Despite education gains, Chinese women are retreating from the workforce, facing widening wage gaps, underrepresentation in leadership, and mounting family pressures—a stark contrast to global gender equality trends.
• Policy Missteps Deepen Inequality: Government efforts to encourage fertility have inadvertently marginalized women economically, worsening labor discrimination and gender disparities.
• Feminism Evolves Under Pressure: Once a partner in state-driven agendas, feminist activism in China now stands at the crossroads of domestic demands and global scrutiny. Facing mounting pressures, it has transformed from collaboration with the state to a force of active resistance.
• Balancing Demographics with Inclusion: Inclusive policies are urgently needed to align women’s economic roles with the nation’s demographic challenges. Without such reforms, China risks losing the valuable contributions of female human capital while facing an impending demographic crisis.

Just over a year ago, Chloe Cheung was sitting her A-levels. Now she's on a Chinese government list of wanted dissidents.

The choir girl-turned-democracy activist woke up to news in December that police in Hong Kong had issued a $HK1 million ($100,000; £105,000) reward for information leading to her capture abroad.

"I actually just wanted to take a gap year after school," Chloe, 19, who lives in London, told the BBC. "But I've ended up with a bounty!"

Chloe is the youngest of 19 activists accused of breaching a national security law introduced by Beijing in response to huge pro-democracy protests in the former British colony five years ago.

In 2021, she and her family moved to the UK under a special visa scheme for Hong Kongers. She can probably never return to her home city and says she has to be careful about where she travels.

Her protest work has made her a fugitive of the Chinese state, a detail not lost on me as we meet one icy morning in the café in the crypt of Westminster Abbey. In medieval England, churches provided sanctuary from arrest.

Hong Kong police issued the arrest warrant on Christmas Eve, using the only photo they appear to have on file for her – in which she is aged 11.

"It freaked me out at first," she says, but then she fired back a public response.

"I didn't want the government to think I was scared. Because if Hong Kongers in Hong Kong can't speak out for themselves any more, then we outside of the city - who can speak freely without fear- we have to speak up for them."

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China's Bounty targets

• July 2023: Eight high profile activists are named including: Nathan Law, Anna Kwok and Finn Lau, former politicians Dennis Kwok and Ted Hui, lawyer and legal scholar Kevin Yam, unionist Mung Siu-tat, and online commentator Yuan Gong-yi.
• December 2023: Simon Cheng, Frances Hui, Joey Siu, Johnny Fok and Tony Choi
• December 2024: Tony Chung, Carmen Lau, Chung Kim-wah, Chloe Cheung, Victor Ho Leung-mau

Archived

In the beginning of February 2020, Chinese journalist Zhang Zhan heard rumours that an unidentified disease was killing citizens in the city of Wuhan. Despite the risk of contagion, she travelled 850 km to cover the situation on the ground, working in the epicentre of what turned out to be one of the deadliest pandemics in modern history. For this, she was sentenced to four years in prison as the Chinese regime tried to cover up news about the outbreak and their responsibility for the spread of the disease.

Five years later — after completing her first, unjust prison sentence — Zhang Zhan is in detention once again, arrested just a few weeks after sharing information about the harassment of human rights activists on social media. She has now been behind bars since August 2024 and recently started a hunger strike in protest of her mistreatment by the regime. According to RSF information, Zhang Zhan — who was already very weak prior herpast six months of detention — is being force-fed by prison authorities.

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Throughout her imprisonment, RSF campaigned for her release and warned about the mistreatment she was subjected to in prison. During her early months of detention, Zhang Zhan — laureate of the 2021 RSF Press Freedom Award — nearly died after going on a total hunger strike to protest her mistreatment. Prison officials forcibly fed her through a nasal tube and sometimes left her handcuffed for days.

China, the world’s biggest prison for journalists and press freedom defenders with at least 124 media workers currently behind bars, is ranked 172nd out of 180 countries in the RSF 2024 World Press Freedom Index.

Public anger in China over concerns raised by doctors that generic drugs used in public hospitals are increasingly ineffective has led to a rare response from the government.

Doctors say they believe the country's drug procurement system, which incentivises the use of cheap generic drugs over original brand-name pharmaceuticals, has led to costs being cut at the expense of people's safety.

But officials, quoted by multiple state media outlets on Sunday, say the issue is one of perception rather than reality.

One report said different people simply had different reactions to medicines and that claims about them being ineffective had "mostly come from people's anecdotes and subjective feelings".

The official response has done little to allay public fears over the reputation of drugs in public hospitals and pharmacies. It is the latest challenge to a healthcare system that is already under enormous strain because of a rapidly ageing population.

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Archived

China last year began construction on projects with the greatest combined coal power capacity since 2015, jeopardising the country’s goal to peak carbon emissions by 2030, according to a report [...] from the Finland-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and Global Energy Monitor (GEM) in the United States, China began construction on 94.5 gigawatts of coal power projects in 2024 — 93 percent of the global total.

Although the country also added a record 356 gigawatts of wind and solar capacity — 4.5 times the European Union’s additions — the uptick in coal power risks solidifying its role in China’s energy mix, the report said.

“China’s rapid expansion of renewable energy has the potential to reshape its power system, but this opportunity is being undermined by the simultaneous large-scale expansion of coal power,” said Qi Qin, lead author of the report and China analyst at CREA.

The rise comes despite a pledge by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2021 to “strictly control” coal power projects and increases in coal consumption before “phasing it down” between 2026 and 2030.

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Coal prioritised

New permits for coal power projects fell 83 percent in the first half of 2024, prompting optimism that China’s clean energy transition was gathering pace.

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But coal power surged in the latter months of 2024, despite the country adding enough power from clean energy sources to cover its growth in electricity demand.

That suggested coal power was being prioritised over renewable sources in some regions, the report said.

“Chinese coal power and mining companies are sponsoring and building new coal plants beyond what is needed,” said Christine Shearer, research analyst at GEM.

“The continued pursuit of coal is crowding out the country’s use of lower-cost clean energy.”

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Here is the link to the study.

A quarter of the world’s countries have engaged in transnational repression – targeting political exiles abroad to silence dissent – in the past decade, new research reveals.

The Washington DC-based non-profit organisation Freedom House has documented 1,219 incidents carried out by 48 governments across 103 countries, from 2014 to 2024.

However, a smaller number of countries account for the vast majority of all documented physical attacks on dissidents, with China the most frequent offender, responsible for 272 incidents, or 22% of recorded cases. Russia, Turkey and Egypt also rank among the worst perpetrators.

High-profile incidents of transnational repression include the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by a hit squad at Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has targeted his foes in the UK, including the 2006 radiation poisoning of the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko. This was followed by a string of more than a dozen other suspicious deaths of Russians on British soil that are also suspected of being tied to the Kremlin.

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Archived

As China aggressively expands its economic footprint across the globe, the recent scandal at BYD's Brazilian factory construction site has exposed the darker side of Chinese overseas investment. The discovery of 163 Chinese workers living in "slavery-like conditions" in Camaçari, Brazil, reveals how China's corporations are exporting not just their products and services, but also their oppressive labor practices beyond their borders. The details that emerged from the Brazilian labor inspector's investigation paint a disturbing picture of systematic exploitation. Workers building BYD's electric vehicle factory were forced to surrender their passports, which is a classic indicator of forced labor and submit to contracts laden with draconian conditions. These included an $890 deposit that could only be retrieved after six months of work, effectively trapping workers in their positions, and arbitrary fines for infractions as minor as walking shirtless or engaging in arguments.

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More revealing still are the discussions that emerged on Chinese social media platform Weibo, where some users noted that the conditions found in Brazil mirror those faced by construction workers within China itself. This acknowledgment hints at how China's domestic labor practices, characterized by the notorious "996" work culture (9 AM to 9 PM, six days a week), are being internationalized through its corporate expansion. The BYD Brazil scandal serves as a warning about the hidden costs of Chinese investment. While countries like Brazil eagerly court Chinese capital as part of their industrialization strategies, they must be vigilant about the potential for labor exploitation. The incident has already prompted Brazilian authorities to suspend temporary work visas for BYD, but more systematic safeguards are needed.

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This case also highlights the tension between economic development and worker rights. The BYD factory, built on the site of a former Ford plant, was supposed to symbolize Brazil's reindustrialization. Instead, it has become a symbol of how Chinese investment can undermine rather than enhance labor standards.

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Archived version

China seems to be gearing up to further ensnare Sri Lanka in its debt trap. This became evident when Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake undertook a four-day visit to China in mid-January this year. During the visit, China sealed several agreements with Sri Lanka, including a $3.7 billion deal for setting up an oil refinery in Hambantota with Sinopec [China Petrochemical Corporation].

Under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Beijing agreed to invest in Sri Lanka’s infrastructure development. However, this comes despite the fact [several projects built under China’s initiative] have already proven to be white elephants, contributing to Sri Lanka’s worst economic crisis in 2022 and 2023.

Chinese loans have piled up for Sri Lanka, accounting for 52% of the island nation’s total foreign debt of $46.9 billion. Between 2000 and 2020 alone, China extended close to $12 billion in loans to Sri Lanka, funding major infrastructure projects. The interest rates on these [Chinese] loans were significantly higher compared to those from the IMF, the World Bank, Japan, and other countries.

China provided loans at a 4% interest rate, with a shorter repayment period of around 10 years, compared to 24 to 28 years for loans from Japan and other Western countries. The interest rate on commercial borrowings from Chinese banks was even more staggering: Sri Lanka took loans from Chinese banks at an exorbitant 6% interest rate.

Moreover, when crisis-hit Sri Lanka was moving from pillar to post in 2022 to restructure its debt with China and secure loans from the IMF to overcome the shortage of foreign exchange that left Colombo unable to finance even essential imports like food and fuel, Beijing simply dithered.

In April 2023, China did not join talks held by Sri Lanka’s other major creditors to restructure the island nation’s debt. Only after constant appeals from the IMF and other countries did Beijing, the largest creditor of Colombo, agree to restructure its loans.

Following this, the IMF provided the first tranche of $330 million out of a $3 billion rescue package approved for crisis-stricken Sri Lanka in 2023. However, for the subsequent tranche of loans from the IMF, China once again delayed the restructuring of its loans. In November 2023, Sri Lanka reached an agreement with China to restructure $4.2 billion of debt. These developments, however, left a deep mark on Sri Lankans’ psyche, as China appeared to be a partner who reluctantly came forward to relieve the island nation of its economic pains.

Despite this, when Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake recently visited China, he was overwhelmed by President Xi Jinping’s warmth and the red-carpet welcome. In his opening remarks, as per the Associated Press, President Xi said: “I am willing to work with you, Mr. President, to chart a new vision for the development of bilateral relations and promote new and greater achievements in China-Sri Lanka friendly cooperation.”

These sugar-coated words from the Chinese President, coupled with Beijing’s intent to deepen its influence in Sri Lanka, a strategically important nation in the Indian Ocean Region, led to the creation of pro-Colombo atmospherics. This ultimately resulted in the two countries signing a series of agreements, including advancing BRI projects such as Colombo Port City and Hambantota Port [both in Sri Lanka].

[...]

More concerning is the question raised by some strategists and foreign experts: whether Sri Lanka, already submerged in huge external debt, will be able to afford further investments under the BRI. They fear that any future financial meltdown in Sri Lanka could allow China to take control of the island nation’s assets, as seen in the case of the Hambantota Port.

[...]

Marriages in China plummeted by a fifth last year, the biggest drop on record, despite manifold efforts by authorities to encourage young couples to wed and have children to boost the country's declining population.

Declining interest in getting married and starting a family has long been blamed on the high cost of childcare and education in China. On top of that, sputtering economic growth over the past few years has made it difficult for university graduates to find work and those that do have jobs feel insecure about their long-term prospects.

More than 6.1 million couples registered for marriage last year, down from 7.68 million a year earlier, figures from the Ministry of Civil Affairs showed.

"Unprecedented! Even in 2020, due to Covid-2019, marriages only decreased by 12.2%," said Yi Fuxian, a demographer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

He noted that the number of marriages in China last year was less than half of the 13.47 million in 2013.

If this trend continues, "the Chinese government's political and economic ambitions will be ruined by its demographic Achilles' heel," he added.

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Archived

Avaaz is backing the call to the UN human rights chief from a coalition of activists fighting for Tibetan rights led by:

• International Tibet Network
• Students for a Free Tibet
• Tibet Action Institute
• Tibet Justice Center
• Tibetan Youth Association Europe

Three out of four.

That’s how many children China is forcing into boarding schools in Tibet, where they face abuse and are indoctrinated until they no longer speak the same language as their parents.

Many of these children often spend weeks or even months without seeing their parents, who say they’re simply not allowed to visit. Cut off from home, Tibetan children are only taught Mandarin and the love of the Chinese Communist Party, until their culture and religion is erased.

Now China is trying to cover it up while rooting out Tibetan culture for 1 million children. That’s where we come in.

Reporters just exposed the scandal thanks to brave Tibetan experts and teachers – and a UN investigation could force the truth of China’s indoctrination schools into broad daylight. Tibetan activists want to bring this call to the UN rights chief in days, before he addresses the Human Rights Council – and a big petition will get his attention! Sign and share now.

The Chinese authorities, as part of their suppression of Tibetans’ basic rights, have taken aim at privately run educational institutions that promote Tibetan language and culture.

...

Several vocational schools in eastern Tibet have been closed down since 2021, apparently without specific reasons being given.

Authorities have insisted that all students attend state schools. There, Tibetan children are now taught only in Chinese from primary to high school levels; such language policy has even been introduced in pre-primary schools. While Tibetan is still taught, it is now a stand-alone subject, much like a foreign language. This is contrary to the Chinese Constitution and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both of which guarantee the right to mother-tongue education.

Tibetan children in state schools are also subjected to a high degree of political education and, according to recent reports, military training. In January 2023, four United Nations special rapporteurs issued a statement of serious concern over China’s language and education policies in Tibet. The Chinese government has yet to provide a meaningful response.