Editor’s note for Tuesday, March 9, 2021

My thoughts today:

USA Today, the newspaper of record of America’s flyover country (where I live, lest anyone is offended by the term!) says the “Biden administration is under escalating pressure to push for a U.S. boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics, scheduled for Beijing next February, over China’s rampant human rights abuses.”

This is not a surprise. As we said in our Red Paper at the beginning of this year, “The Beijing 2022 Winter Games will become the focus of a boycott campaign from a range of human rights activists and organizations.”

Also not a surprise: China has launched a digital ‘vaccine passport’ for international travel. Expect other countries to follow suit.

Upcoming events:

• March 11: A video screening and panel discussion about the consequences of the U.S. government’s China Initiative and its future under the Biden administration.
• March 18: A conversation with Winston Ma and Marcus Brauchli on how new digital media is the frontline of the U.S.-China tech war.

We’ve added six new voice narrations of journalism about China from a variety of English language publications to our China Stories catalog. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify for notifications when new episodes are published.

Our word of the day is bitcoin mining (比特币挖矿 bǐtè bì wākuàng): see below for more on this lucrative activity in China.

—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief