China Reacts to the Fall of Assad

by Arthur Kaufman | Dec 12, 2024

In a sudden breakthrough in the Syrian civil war, rebel groups rolled into Damascus on Sunday and overthrew President Bashar al-Assad, putting an end to decades of his family’s dictatorial rule. There has been much...

When women have problems, [the authorities] pretend to be blind and dumb, but when they want something from us, they won’t shut up about it.”

— A Weibo user, commenting on the silence from government officials and the All-China Women’s Federation amidst a scandal about quality defects and false advertising by many Chinese brands of sanitary pads. This lack of government concern is in stark contrast to constant calls from state media and government officials for Chinese women to "do their part" to solve the demographic crisis by having as many as three children.

 

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Interview: Gerald Roche on the Erasure of Tibet’s Minority Languages

Dec 12, 2024

As the Chinese Communist Party has intensified its policy of assimilation for cultural and ethnic minority groups in recent decades, language has been a key part of that effort. Standard Tibetan is recognized as the official language of the Tibetans, who live throughout the Tibet Autonomous Region as well as in Tibetan areas in current Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces. Yet government practice has made it increasingly difficult for Tibetans to live, work, and study in their own language; Mandarin is now the primary language of instruction in many schools, official communications...

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TikTok Caught Up in Romanian Election Turmoil

Dec 10, 2024

Romania’s presidential election has taken a dramatic turn. Far-right, pro-Russian ultranationalist candidate Calin Georgescu won the first round of voting on November 24, but President Klaus Iohannis (whose party’s center-right candidate failed to pass the first round) publicized declassified Romanian intelligence documents on December 5 purporting to show foreign interference in the election in favor of Georgescu. The next day, the nation’s top court cancelled a runoff election scheduled for December 8, even though polls had already opened for voters in the diaspora, and called for a rerun...

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Interview: Gerald Roche on the Erasure of Tibet’s Minority Languages

Dec 12, 2024

As the Chinese Communist Party has intensified its policy of assimilation for cultural and ethnic minority groups in recent decades, language has been a key part of that effort. Standard Tibetan is recognized as the official language of the Tibetans, who live throughout the Tibet Autonomous Region as well as in Tibetan areas in current Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces. Yet government practice has made it increasingly difficult for Tibetans to live, work, and study in their own language; Mandarin is now the primary language of instruction in many schools, official communications...

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Dec 12, 2024

What to do when the law and basic humanity are in opposition? The Chinese internet has an answer: “Aim the rifle an inch higher” (枪口抬高一厘米, qiāngkǒu táigāo yī límǐ). The phrase is shorthand for subverting orders that violate one’s conscience. “Aim the rifle an inch higher” has its origin in historical fact. In 1992, two former East German border guards were convicted of fatally shooting Chris Gueffroy as he fled across the no man’s land that divided East and West Berlin. While rendering the guilty verdict, the presiding judge of the trial stated: “At the end of the 20th century, no one has...

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