Editor’s note for Wednesday, August 26, 2020

My thoughts today:

The United States has announced sanctions against 24 Chinese companies involved in the construction of islands and reefs in the South China Sea (see State Department press release, Reuters report).  

• Meanwhile, Vietnam has condemned new Chinese military drills in the South China Sea, and is considering “world court arbitration against China if maritime diplomacy fails” while “Manila will invoke its defense agreement with the United States if China attacks its naval vessels in the South China Sea, Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jnr.” said.
• The Trump administration is weighing accusing China of “genocide” over Uyghurs, reports Politico, while Axios notes that the Biden campaign says China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims is “genocide.”

The People’s Daily published a vitriolic and lengthy condemnation of Mike Pompeo. The essay (read it here or here if you dare, in Chinese) occupies three whole tabloid-format print newspaper pages, nearly 30,000 Chinese characters. That’s the equivalent of around 10,000, maybe 15,000 English words.

So, perhaps you won’t blame me for quoting another pessimist today. Zhou Bo, a senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University, writes for the Financial Times: “The risk of China-U.S. military conflict is worryingly high.”

Our word of the day is Ant Group (蚂蚁集团 mǎyǐ jítuán).

—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief