Editor’s note for Tuesday, December 1, 2020

My thoughts today:

“Evil Man” is a web archive on GitHub (in Chinese), which has been going viral on Chinese social media. The archive goes back 11 months, and features news on gendered violence in China, with more than 1,800 entries sorted into 22 categories. The items include intimate partner violence, sexual assault, sexual harassment, misogyny from public figures, and unjust court judgments.

For more on this act of anonymous web activism — the author is listed as “All Surviving Chinese Women” — click through to this piece by Ting Lin on The China Project.

The crisis in Australia-China relations deepened again today. Here is nationalist barker and editor of state tabloid Global Times Hú Xījìn 胡锡进 telling Australia to learn some “respect” (in Chinese), or China will force it to. Xinhua also weighs in on the latest state of the controversy: Australia, the perpetrator, should truly apologize for scathing crimes.

For context and a sensible view of the affair from New Zealand, see this editorial by Kiwi news site Stuff. There’s also this: Jacinda Ardern comes to Australia’s aid in Twitter dispute with China.

In an interview taped this morning, former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd talks about Australia-China relations, and what can be done about them. One of his points: Everything very much depends on how Beijing and Washington get on in the coming months.

Our word of the day is successful lunar landing (成功落月 chénggōng luò yuè).

—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief