Tag: Chinas

China’s Ding Liren beats Nepomniachtchi in tie-breaker to become the new World Chess Champion

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Astana: China’s Ding Liren made history by becoming the 17th FIDE World Champion in chess, defeating Ian Nepomniachtchi in the final game of the tiebreak here on Sunday.
Both Ding and Nepomniachtchi finished 7-7 after exhilarating 14 classical games, taking the match into the tie-breaker.
In the tie-break, Ding Liren defeated Ian Nepomniachtchi 2.5-1.5 in the 2023 FIDE World Championship final, becoming the first Chinese male player to win the chess world championship.

This marks a historic moment as both the men’s and women’s world champions in chess are now from China.
After three draws in the tiebreaks, Ding emerged victorious in the fourth and final game, clinching the title. In a tense and even position, with just a minute on his clock, Ding declined a threefold repetition and decided to play for a win. In a nail-biting finish, with both players under enormous pressure, the Chinese Grandmaster (GM) emerged victorious after 68 moves.
It was a great win for Ding as he had to fight back thrice to negate Nepomniachtchi’s lead three times in the first (classical) part of the match, Ding Liren showed tremendous skill and resilience to emerge victorious in the tiebreaks. In contrast, Ian Nepomniachtchi’s nerves and luck faltered, resulting in his second defeat in the quest for the chess crown.
A historic success for Ding who wouldn’t have even taken part in the match had Magnus Carlsen not decided to abandon his crown.
The now former World Champion, Magnus Carlsen, congratulated Ding in his way: “Self-pinning for immortality. Congrats Ding!!!”

“I’m quite relieved. The moment Ian resigned from the game it was very emotional. I could not control my mood and feelings. I know myself – I will cry and burst into tears” said the emotional Ding Liren in his first comments.
Ian Nepomniachtchi congratulated his opponent. Reflecting on himself, he said: “I guess I had every chance [to win]. So many promising positions It’s always a lottery after 14 games of the match, so that’s it”.
This is the first time in history that a Chinese player has become a world champion in the open category. China now holds the world championship title in both the open and the women’s category.
The two players in the match will split a prize fund of two million euros, with 60% going to the new World Champion.

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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 30, 2023
China’s border pacts’ violation ‘eroded’ basis of ties: Rajnath to Chinese defence min

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New Delhi: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday told his Chinese counterpart, General Li Shangfu that all issues at the LAC need to be resolved in accordance with existing bilateral agreements, officials said.
In their meet, which came a day before the SCO Defence Ministers meet – which India, as the Chair of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in 2023, is hosting, the two ministers had frank discussions about developments in the India-China border areas as well as bilateral relations.
During the meet, Rajnath Singh categorically conveyed that development of relations between India and China is premised on prevalence of peace and tranquillity at the borders.

According to the Defence Ministry, he added that all issues at the LAC need to be resolved in accordance with existing bilateral agreements and commitments. He reiterated that violation of existing agreements has eroded the entire basis of bilateral relations and disengagement at the border will logically be followed with de-escalation.
The repeated attempts by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to violate the Line of Actual Control (LAC), leading to tension in Ladakh, had spurred the institution of the Corps Commander-level meetings.
The 18th round of the Corps Commander-level talks was held on Sunday, but was inconclusive as there was noheadway on the contentious issue of the Depsang Plains and de-escalation along the LAC in eastern Ladakh.
While the two sides agreed on mutual withdrawals from Pangong Tso, Gogra, and Hot Springs, the Depsang Plains and Demchok remain points of contention and tension.
Beside his Chinese counterpart, Rajnath Singh also met his Iranian counterpart Brigadier General Mohammed Reza Gharaei Ashtiyani and the meeting took place in a cordial and warm atmosphere. Both the leaders emphasised on the age-old cultural, linguistic, and civilisational ties between the two countries, including people-to-people connect.

Both the Ministers reviewed the bilateral defence cooperation and exchanged views on regional security issues, including peace and stability in Afghanistan. Further, the two Ministers discussed the development of the International North South Transport corridor to ease logistic problems to Afghanistan and other countries in Central Asia.
The Iranian Defence Minister will also attend the SCO meeting on Friday as his country has observer status in the organisation.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by Siasat staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 27, 2023
Chizuko Ueno: the Japanese writer stoking China’s feminist underground

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To find evidence that China’s feminist movement is gaining momentum – despite strict government censorship and repression – check bookshelves, nightstands and digital libraries. There, you might find a copy of one of Chizuko Ueno’s books. The 74-year-old Japanese feminist and author of Feminism from Scratch and Patriarchy and Capitalism has sold more than a million books in China, according to Beijing Open Book, which tracks sales. Of these, 200,000 were sold in January and February alone.
Ueno, a professor of sociology at the University of Tokyo, was little known outside Chinese academia until she delivered a 2019 matriculation speech at the university in which she railed against its sexist admissions policies, sexual “abuse” by male students against their female peers, and the pressure women felt to downplay their academic achievements.
“Feminist thought does not insist that women should behave like men or the weak should become the powerful,” she said. “Rather, feminism asks that the weak be treated with dignity as they are.”
The speech went viral in Japan, then China.
In the past two years, 11 of her books have been translated into simplified Chinese and four more will be published this year. In December, two of her books were among the top 20 foreign nonfiction bestsellers in China. While activism and protests have been stifled by the government, the rapid rise in Ueno’s popularity shows that women are still looking for ways to learn more about feminist thought, albeit at a private, individual level.
Talk to young Chinese academics, writers and podcasters about what women are reading and Ueno’s name often comes up. “We like-like her,” says Shiye Fu, the host of popular feminist podcast Stochastic Volatility.
“In China we need some sort of feminist role model to lead us and enable us to see how far women can go,” she says. “She taught us that as a woman, you have to fight every day, and to fight is to survive.”
When asked by the Guardian about her popularity in China, Ueno says her message resonates with this generation of Chinese women because, while they have grown up with adequate resources and been taught to believe they will have more opportunities, “patriarchy and sexism put the burden to be feminine on them as a wife and mother”.

Ueno, who found her voice during the student power movements of the 1960s, has long argued that marriage restricts women’s autonomy, something she learned watching her own parents. She described her father as “a complete sexist”. It’s stance that resonates with women in China, who are rebelling against the expectation that they take a husband.
‘Feminist cancer’
Ueno’s most popular book, with 65,000 reviews on Douban, is simply titled Misogyny. One review reads: “It still takes a little courage to type this. I have always been shy about discussing gender issues in a Chinese environment, because if I am not careful, I will easily attract the label of … ‘feminist cancer’.”
“Now it’s a hard time,” says Lü Pin, a prominent Chinese feminist who now lives in the US. In 2015 she happened to be in New York when Chinese authorities arrested five of her peers – who were detained for 37 days and became known as the “Feminist Five” – and came to Lü’s apartment in Beijing. She narrowly avoided arrest. “Our movement is increasingly being regarded as illegal, even criminal, in China.”
Lü Pin: ‘Perhaps the first step of feminist movements is always literature in many countries, especially in China.’ Photograph: One Billion Rising
China’s feminist movement has grown enormously in the past few years, especially among young women online, says Lü, where it was stoked by the #MeToo movements around the world and given oxygen on social media. “But that’s just part of the story,” she says. Feminism is also facing much stricter censorship – the word “feminism” is among those censored online, as is China’s #MeToo hashtag, #WoYeShi.
“When we already have so many people joining our community, the government regards that as a threat to its rule,” Lü says. “So the question is: what is the future of the movement?”
Because large-scale organising is “almost impossible” in China, women are turning to “all kinds of alternative ways to maintain feminism in their daily lives and even develop and transfer feminism to others,” she says. These may take the form of book clubs or exercise meet-ups. Some of her friends in China organise hikes. “They say that we are feminists, we are hiking together, so when we are hiking we talk about feminism.
“Nobody can change the micro level.”
‘The first step’
In 2001, when Lü was a journalist starting out on her journey into feminism, she founded a book club with a group of friends. She was struggling to find books on the subject, so she and her friends pooled their resources. “We were feminists, journalists, scholars, so we decided let’s organise a group and read, talk, discuss monthly,” she says. They met in people’s homes, or the park, or their offices. It lasted eight years and the members are still among her best friends.
Before the book club, “I felt lonely when I was pursuing feminism. So I need friends, I need a community. And that was the first community I had.” “I got friendship, I deepened my understanding of feminism,” Lü says. “It’s interesting, perhaps the first step of feminist movements is always literature in many countries, especially in China.”
Lü first read Ueno’s academic work as a young scholar, when few people in China knew her name. Ueno’s books are for people who are starting out on their pursuit of feminism, Lü says, and the author is good at explaining feminist issues in ways that are easy to understand.
Like many Ting Guo discovered Ueno after the Tokyo University speech. Guo, an assistant professor in the department of cultural and religious studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, still uses it in lectures.
Ueno’s popularity is part of a larger phenomenon, Guo says. “We cannot really directly describe what we want to say, using the word that we want to use, because of the censorship, because of the larger atmosphere. So people need to try to borrow words, mirror that experience in other social situations, in other political situations, in other contexts, in order to precisely describe their own experience, their own feelings and their own thoughts.”
There are so many people who are new to the feminist movement, says Lü, “and they are all looking for resources, but due to censorship, it’s so hard for Chinese scholars, for Chinese feminists, to publish their work.”
Ueno “is a foreigner, that is one of her advantages, and she also comes from [an] east Asian context”, which means that the patriarchal system she describes is similar to China’s. Lü says the reason books by Chinese feminists aren’t on bestseller lists is because of censorship.
Na Zhong, a novelist who translated Sally Rooney’s novels into simplified Chinese, feels that Chinese feminism is, at least when it comes to literature, gaining momentum. The biggest sign of this, both despite and because of censorship, is “the sheer number of women writers that are being translated into Chinese” – among whom Ueno is the “biggest star”.
“Young women are discovering their voices, and I’m really happy for my generation,” she says. “We’re just getting started.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

April 26, 2023
Why China’s police state has a precinct near you

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Security agencies across Europe and the Americas are investigating more than 100 facilities that an advocacy organization exposed in September as overseas outposts of China’s security apparatus. In the U.S., that includes at least two others besides the one targeted this week.
“These secret police stations reveal the CCP’s blatant disregard and disrespect for the American rules and privacy,” said Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chair of House Foreign Affairs Committee, using the abbreviation for the Chinese Communist Party. McCaul urged the Biden administration to “root out these encroachments on U.S. sovereignty.”
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), chair of the House Select Committee on China, said in a statement Tuesday that the Chinese police outposts raise the risk of the U.S. becoming “a hunting ground for dictators.”
Here’s what we know about the network of Chinese police stations across the world:
It’s a sprawling network
The Spain-based nonprofit advocacy organization Safeguard Defenders published data from China’s Ministry of Public Security in September that revealed that Beijing had announced its “first batch” of “30 overseas police service stations in 25 cities in 21 countries.” By December, Safeguard Defender’s tally of such facilities had grown to more than 100 in countries including the U.S., Canada, Nigeria, Japan, Argentina and Spain.
The stations appear to provide civilian cover for Chinese government operations deemed too risky for official Chinese diplomats to pull off. They provide toeholds in neighborhoods with large ethnic Chinese and Asian communities — the Manhattan facility was in Chinatown — that allow those operatives to function with relative anonymity.
They’re a “perfect platform to advance operations that are favorable to Chinese government interests, including misinformation and disinformation,” said Heather McMahon, a former senior director at the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, which monitors the intelligence community’s compliance with the Constitution and relevant laws. Safeguard Defenders has reported that one of the purposes of these stations has been to “persuade” Chinese citizens who are implicated in crimes to return to China.
Authorities in at least five countries have confirmed that at least some of these are indeed Chinese government operations that violate laws barring the activities of foreign police personnel inside their borders. Investigations into other outposts are ongoing in countries including the United Kingdom, Japan and the Netherlands, but there have been no arrests of individuals connected with those operations.

It’s unclear how extensive the network is and whether the Safeguard Defenders’ report — and follow-up by individual governments confirming the existence of such outposts — has prompted Beijing to scale back the program to avoid detection.
The European offensive is underway, and embattled
Revelations about dozens of unlawful Chinese police facilities in Europe prompted Italian EU Parliament member Alessandra Basso to ask the European Commission in December if there was an EU-wide strategy “to close down these police stations and put an end to their activities.” The response: EU member states are on their own in probing “any alleged violation of their laws or … internal security occurring on their territory,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement published last month.
EU governments are doing precisely that, with limited success. The German government revealed last month that Beijing was refusing to comply with Berlin’s demands for the shutdown of two unlawful Chinese police stations in the country. Greek police announced in December that they were investigating a similar operation in downtown Athens. Dutch media reported in October the existence of two unlawful Chinese police outposts, prompting denials from Beijing and a Dutch government pledge to probe those allegations. That same month the Irish government ordered the closure of a similar facility in Dublin.
But activists say that’s inadequate given the scale of the problem. Many European governments are clearly “not taking this issue seriously at all,” argued Safeguard Defenders Campaign Director Laura Harth.
Harth criticized the “absence of a strong and unified public message” from affected countries “on the illegality of these operations and the measures or investigations in place to counter these activities.”
Complicating the situation: Chinese law enforcement has legal footholds in Italy, Croatia and Serbia through deals that allow for “the stationing and deployment of Chinese police officers” in those countries. Those Chinese police deploy on joint patrols with local counterparts in areas that attract large numbers of Chinese tourists. But that declaration — signed by EU lawmakers from countries including Germany, France, Denmark and Estonia — urged EU countries to reconsider such agreements “with a country disrespecting human rights, the rule of law and democratic values.”
In the U.K., where at least three alleged Chinese police stations are reportedly operating, police investigations continue, Home Office Minister Chris Philp said Wednesday.
Alicia Kearns, a Conservative MP who chairs the House of Commons foreign affairs committee, said she is “exasperated that six months since this issue was first raised in the House, that members are still needing to ask the government why Chinese police stations are operating in at least three locations on U.K. soil.”
“These stations are a very real example of transnational repression being conducted by an authoritarian state, and the government must take action to shut down these stations immediately,” she added.
U.S. officials and policymakers have been worried about American outposts for awhile
Gallagher, the House China committee chair, held a press conference outside the now-abandoned Chinese police outpost in New York in February and warned of “at least two more on United States’ soil.” Safeguard Defenders has reported the existence of a second such facility in an unidentified location in New York City and another in Los Angeles.
FBI Director Christopher Wray told a Senate hearing in November that he was aware of such an operation in New York City and was “very concerned” about it. That culminated with the arrest Monday of Chinese nationals Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping for conspiring to act as Chinese government agents.
That same day, the Department of Justice charged 44 individuals — including 40 members of China’s Ministry of Public Security and two officials from the Cyberspace Administration of China — with “transnational repression offenses targeting U.S. residents.” Those suspects “created and used fake social media accounts to harass and intimidate PRC dissidents residing abroad and sought to suppress the dissidents’ free speech,” said a DOJ statement published Monday.
It’s an issue north of the U.S. border, too
Safeguard Defenders has reported four such locations in the Toronto area, three in the Vancouver area and two more were found unlisted in the Montreal area. And allegations last month that Beijing meddled in Canada’s federal elections in 2019 and 2021 have made China’s potential malign activities in the country a hot-button issue.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have since begun a nationwide investigation into foreign interference following the report’s findings, including into the Wenzhou Friendship Society in British Columbia.
Canada, unlike the United States, doesn’t force foreign agents to register with the government. But amid growing calls for change following the recent bombshell reports of China’s alleged interference, Canada’s Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino announced that the Liberal government has started consultations running until early May to consider establishing its own registry system.
Beijing is in denial mode
Beijing denies that it operates unlawful overseas police outposts. Instead it insists it operates “service centers” where Chinese people residing abroad can “get their driver’s licenses renewed and receive physical check-ups,” the spokesperson for the U.S. embassy in Washington, D.C., Liu Pengyu, said in November.
On Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin called the U.S. allegations “slanders and smears … There are simply no so-called ‘overseas police stations.’”
The FBI is on the hunt for more such facilities
There are concerns on Capitol Hill that the existence of such outposts goes beyond just one location in Manhattan.
“Today’s arrests are only the tip of the iceberg,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla) tweeted on Monday.
The FBI is clearly not stopping at the arrests of Chen and Lu in New York City’s Chinatown. The agency has a dedicated transnational repression website where the public can report such unlawful activities.
“We’re increasingly conducting outreach in order to raise awareness of how some countries harass and intimidate their own citizens living in the U.S.,” the FBI said in a statement.
And the New York City and DOJ indictments Monday suggest that the authorities are closing in on any remaining Chinese unlawful police outposts.
Christopher Johnson, a former senior China analyst at the CIA, argued that the investigations simply need to be allowed to run their course.
The U.S. government should “not overly freak out about these police stations — where we discover them we should roll them up and prosecute,” said Johnson, now the head of the China Strategies Group political risk consultancy. “But there’s no need to paint [them] as an existential threat to U.S. freedom and democracy.”
Finding and shuttering these outposts is tricky
China’s unlawful police outposts aren’t easy to find.
Beijing positions them inside what appear to be legitimate businesses or organizations that provide them a front to conduct their operations. They operate discreetly and don’t advertise their actual purpose. Members of local communities who are aware of such facilities are hesitant to contact authorities for fear of possible Chinese government reprisals against them in the U.S. or against family members in China.
“I think there are definitely more, it’s just that they’re not listed on some public website,” said Human Rights Watch senior China researcher Yaqiu Wang.
Some in Europe hope the indictments in New York will help spur more action globally.
Reinhard Bütikofer, chair of the European Parliament’s China relations delegation, said Europe should “take advantage” of the opportunity that the U.S. action in New York offers to rally democracies together and “show China its limits.”
Erica Orden and Wilhelmine Preussen contributed to this report.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 20, 2023
China’s global influence on downward drift as its lender role turns toxic

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United Nations: China’s influence at the world body — a barometer of its global clout — measured by a recent secret electoral vote has shown a downward drift even as it maintains an iron grip on power at the Security Council because of its veto powers.
China went head-to-head against India in elections at the 53-member UN Economic and Social Council for the UN Statistical Commission India polled 46 votes, while China came in third with 19 votes, behind South Korea with 23.
And in a second round of balloting for the second seat on the commission for the Asia Pacific region, China tied with South Korea with 25 votes each, and Seoul got the seat in a draw of lots.

It was a big change for China pushing its goal of global dominance.
The difference between New Delhi and Beijing is stark in a changed situation where China’s largesse increasingly looks like a usurious power play while India is leading the efforts to restructure the crushing debts of the developing countries.
Beijing poured hundreds of billions of dollars into its web of One Belt One Road initiative across the world and the bills are coming due to the recipients.
As the president of the G20, India has positioned itself as the voice of the Global South, while avoiding strident anti-imperialist/anti-neocolonial rhetoric, and this has put India on the opposite side to China, which probably is the biggest direct lender, although other countries and multinational institutions are also in the ranks of lenders..
At the G20 finance ministers meeting in February, India pushed proposals for the big lenders — especially China — to take a “haircut”, write off portions of loans, to give relief to the debtor nations as they struggle from the economic crisis from the Covid pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war.

At the International Monetary Fund-World Bank meetings in Washington this month, India again took centre stage as a co-chair with the heads of those organisations of the Global Sovereign Debt Restructuring Roundtable to find a solution to the debt crisis.
As global polarisation accelerates, China is the leading force on one side of the divide and in a choice between India and China, especially if the ballot is secret, the preference appears to be to the sort of neutral country.
To counter China’s attempts to get elected to international bodies, especially in leadership positions, the foreign ministers of the Quad, made up of India, the US, Japan and Australia, declared their commitment last month to “independent” candidates.
After their meeting, they said in a joint statement: “We will support meritorious and independent candidates for elections in the UN and in international forums to maintain the integrity and impartiality of the international system.”
While China’s grip may loosen in anonymous elections, in open voting it still can use its position as a lender to advantage as it did at the UN Human Rights Council last October when a proposal to discuss China’s alleged human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang province was voted down.
It has a steely hold on the most important body of the UN, the Security Council where it can wield its veto as a permanent member or like any member on its committees like the ones for terrorism sanctions.
It has blocked several times attempts to designate Pakistan-based operatives behind attacks on India as global terrorists, which would place them under international sanctions.
But it has had to relent in some cases under international pressure.
Beijing agreed in January to designating Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) Deputy Chief Abdul Rehman Makki after having blocked it earlier.
In 2019, China lifted its block on Masood Azhar of the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).
But it continues to block adding to the international terrorist list LeT leaders Sajid Mir and Shahid Mahmood, and JeM leader Abdul Rauf Azhar.
In the long-range, Beijing can also block the expansion of the Security Council’s permanent membership, although it is already facing pressure from the African nations, a constituency it ha sought to cultivate.
Organisationally, China uses the power of the purse for influence. It is the second largest contributor to the UN’s budget sending $438 million last year.
It gets it a measure of deference from UN officials.
The former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet admitted that she had been under “tremendous pressure” over a report on China’s human rights violations against the Uyghurs.
She published the report only on her last day in office after delaying its release for several years.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 16, 2023
India strongly rejects China’s objection to Amit Shah’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh

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New Delhi: India on Tuesday firmly rejected China’s objection to Home Minister Amit Shah’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh and asserted that the state “was, is and will” always remain an integral and inalienable part of India.
External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said objecting to such visits does not stand to reason and will not change the reality.
The home minister visited Arunachal Pradesh on Monday during which he launched the ambitious ‘Vibrant Villages Programme’ that is aimed at improving the standard of living of the people in villages in frontier areas.

“We completely reject the comments made by the Chinese official spokesperson. Indian leaders routinely travel to the state of Arunachal Pradesh as they do to any other state of India,” Bagchi said.
“Arunachal Pradesh was, is and will always remain an integral and inalienable part of India. Objecting to such visits does not stand to reason and will not change the above reality,” he said.
Bagchi was responding to media queries on the Chinese reaction to Shah’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh.
From a border village in Arunachal Pradesh, Shah, in a clear message to China, on Monday said that no one can dare cast an evil eye on India’s territorial integrity and encroach even an “inch of our land”.
He said the era when anyone could encroach the borderlands of India was over.

The home minister’s statement came days after Beijing announced Chinese names for 11 places in Arunachal Pradesh which the neighbouring country claims as the “southern part of Tibet.”
Responding to a question on Shah’s visit, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said, “Zangnan (the Chinese name for Arunachal Pradesh) is part of China’s territory”.
“The activity of the senior Indian official in Zangnan violates China’s territorial sovereignty and is not conducive to peace and tranquillity in the border areas. We are firmly against this,” he told a media briefing in Beijing.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 11, 2023
India rejects China’s ‘objection’ to Amit Shah’s Arunachal Pradesh visit

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New Delhi: India on Tuesday rejected China’s “objection” to Home Minister Amit Shah’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh, making it clear that the state is and will always remain an integral part of India.
A statement issued by external affairs ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said: “We completely reject the comments made by the Chinese Official Spokesperson. Indian leaders routinely travel to the state of Arunachal Pradesh as they do to any other state of India. Arunachal Pradesh was, is and will always remain an integral and inalienable part of India.”
The statement further said that “objecting to such visits does not stand to reason and will not change the above reality”.

Earlier in a clear message to China from the border village of Kibithoo in Arunachal Pradesh, Shah on Monday had said no one can dare cast an evil eye on India’s territorial integrity and encroach even an “inch of our land”.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 11, 2023
As Ramzan begins, China’s Muslims face fasting ban, monitoring

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Washington: As Muslims around the world prepare to begin the holy month of Ramzan, Muslims in China are facing fasting ban while their cultural and religious traditions are increasingly coming under attack, according to a media report.
Uyghurs in the northwestern region of Xinjiang are being ordered not to allow their children to fast, with the latter being quizzed by the authorities as to whether their parents are fasting, local officials and rights groups said, RFA reported.
“During Ramzan, the authorities are requiring 1,811 villages [in Xinjiang] to implement a round-the-clock monitoring system, including spot home inspections of Uyghur families,” World Uyghur Congress spokesperson Dilshat Rishit said, RFA reported.
During Ramzan, Muslims are called to fast during daylight hours.
China’s 11.4 million Hui Muslims close-knit ethnic Chinese communities who have maintained their Muslim faith over centuries are in danger of being erased entirely under the Communist Party’s draconian religious rules, rights groups have warned in a new report.
They have been identified by Beijing as “a threat to be resolved through forcible assimilation”, said a report from a coalition of rights groups, including the Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), RFA reported.
This is in stark contrast to the relative freedom they enjoyed before President Xi Jinping launched a renewed attack on religious worship, forcing Christians, Muslims and Buddhists alike to submit to party control and censorship of their religious lives under his “sinicisation”, the report said.
“Hui community members were able to openly participate in mosque communities, Arabic schools, and for private worship, albeit under restrictions facilitated by party liaisons. Hui entrepreneurs were encouraged to develop business and tourism connections with the wider Muslim world as part of the Belt and Road Initiative,” it said, RFA reported.

China has also targeted Muslim communities with its “ethnic unity” campaign under which officials impose Han Chinese “relatives” on ethnic minority Uyghur families, who then put pressure on them to observe non-Muslim traditions, including drinking alcohol and eating pork.
“Unity” policies haven taken place in Xinjiang against the backdrop of the mass incarceration of at least 1.8 million Uyghurs and other ethnic minority Muslims in “re-education” camps, and their involvement in forced labour, as well as amid reports of the systemic rape, sexual abuse, and forced sterilization of Uyghur women in the camps, RFA reported.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 24, 2023
Putin welcomes China’s Xi to Kremlin amid Ukraine war

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Moscow: Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed Chinese leader Xi Jinping to the Kremlin on Monday, in a visit that sent a powerful message to Western leaders allied with Ukraine that their efforts to isolate Moscow have fallen short.
As he greeted Xi, Putin also said he welcomed his plan for “settlement of the acute crisis in Ukraine.”
Xi’s visit showed off Beijing’s new diplomatic swagger and gave a political lift to Putin just days after an international arrest warrant was issued for the Kremlin leader on war crimes charges related to Ukraine.
The two major powers have described Xi’s three-day trip as an opportunity to deepen their “no-limits friendship.”
China looks to Russia as a source of oil and gas for its energy-hungry economy, and as a partner in standing up to what both see as U.S. domination of global affairs.
The two countries, which are among the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, also have held joint military drills.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that over dinner on Monday, Putin and Xi will likely include a “detailed explanation” of Moscow’s actions in Ukraine.
Broader talks involving officials from both countries on a range of subjects are scheduled for Tuesday, Peskov said.

For Putin, Xi’s presence is a prestigious, diplomatic triumph amid Western efforts to isolate Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.
In an article published in the Chinese People’s Daily newspaper, Putin described Xi’s visit as a “landmark event” that “reaffirms the special nature of the Russia-China partnership.”
Putin also specifically said the meeting sent a message to Washington that the two countries aren’t prepared to accept attempts to weaken them.
“The U.S. policy of simultaneously deterring Russia and China, as well as all those who do not bend to the American diktat, is getting ever fiercer and more aggressive,” he wrote.
Xi’s trip came after the International Criminal Court in The Hague announced Friday it wants to put Putin on trial for the abductions of thousands of children from Ukraine.
China portrays Xi’s visit as part of normal diplomatic exchanges and has offered little detail about what the trip aims to accomplish, though the nearly 13 months of war in Ukraine cast a long shadow on the talks.
At a daily briefing in Beijing on Monday, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Xi’s trip was a “journey of friendship, cooperation and peace.”
On the war, Wang said: “China will uphold its objective and fair position on the Ukrainian crisis and play a constructive role in promoting peace talks.”
Beijing’s leap into Ukraine issues follows its recent success in brokering talks between Iran and its chief Middle Eastern rival, Saudi Arabia, which agreed to restore their diplomatic ties after years of tensions.
Following that success, Xi called for China to play a bigger role in managing global affairs.
“President Xi will have an in-depth exchange of views with President Putin on bilateral relations and major international and regional issues of common concern,” Wang said.
He added that Xi aims to “promote strategic coordination and practical cooperation between the two countries and inject new impetus into the development of bilateral relations.”
Although they boast of a “no-limits” partnership, Beijing has conducted a China First policy. It has shrunk from supplying Russia’s war machine a move that could worsen relations with Washington and turn important European trade partners against Beijing.
On the other hand, it has refused to condemn Moscow’s aggression and has censured Western sanctions against Moscow, while accusing NATO and the United States of provoking Putin’s military action.
China last month called for a cease-fire and peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy cautiously welcomed Beijing’s involvement, but the overture fizzled.
The Kremlin has welcomed China’s peace plan and said Putin and Xi would discuss it.
Washington strongly rejected Beijing’s call for a cease-fire as the effective ratification of the Kremlin’s battlefield gains.
Kyiv officials say they won’t bend in their terms for a peace accord.
“The first and main point is the capitulation or withdrawal of the Russian occupation troops from the territory of Ukraine in accordance with the norms of international law and the UN Charter,” Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, tweeted on Monday.
That means restoring “sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity,” he wrote.
The Kremlin doesn’t recognize the authority of the International Criminal Court and has rejected its move against Putin as “legally null and void.” China, the U.S. and Ukraine also don’t recognize the ICC, but the court’s announcement tarnished Putin’s international standing.
China’s Foreign Ministry called on the ICC to “respect the jurisdictional immunity” of a head of state and “avoid politicisation and double standards.”
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, said the ICC’s move will have “monstrous consequences” for international law.
“A gloomy sunset of the entire system of international relations is coming, trust is exhausted,” Medvedev wrote on his messaging app channel. He argued that in the past, the ICC has destroyed its credibility by failing to prosecute what he called U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq.
He also cautioned that the court in The Hague could be a target for a Russian missile strike. Medvedev has in the past made bombastic statements and claims.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said Monday it is opening a criminal case against a prosecutor and three judges of the ICC over the arrest warrants they issued for Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova.
The committee called the ICC’s prosecution “unlawful” because it was, among other things, a “criminal prosecution of a knowingly innocent person.”
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 20, 2023
China’s Xi to visit Putin in Russia next week

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Chinese President Xi Jinping will pay a three-day visit to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin next week, Beijing and Moscow announced Friday, with “strategic cooperation” on the agenda.
“On March 20-22, 2023, at the invitation of Vladimir Putin, president of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping will pay a state visit to Russia,” the Kremlin’s press service said in a statement.
“A number of important bilateral documents will be signed,” the statement reads.
Neither country confirmed previous reports from the Wall Street Journal that Xi would use the opportunity to call Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — in what would be the first communication between the two leaders since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last February.
While China was initially committed to a “no-limit partnership” passed with Moscow days before the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Beijing has since sought to position itself as a peace broker, introducing a 12-point plan for peace.
Yet, Beijing’s attempts have drawn criticism from Western leaders. China, they said, is anything but neutral in the war, and thus not a good fit to be playing the arbiter.
China has been accused by the U.S. of delivering non-lethal “support” to Russia — and, according to exclusive customs data obtained by POLITICO, Chinese companies shipped more than 1,000 assault rifles, drone parts and body armor to Russian entities between June and December of last year.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

March 15, 2023