Editor’s note for Wednesday, August 4, 2021

My thoughts today:

One of the news stories that will define our times is the fate of Huawei’s Mèng Wǎnzhōu 孟晚舟, currently under house arrest in Canada as she waits for an extradition request from the U.S. government to wind its way through the Canadian legal system.

Today, the case began the “final weeks of hearings” that will determine if Meng is sent to the U.S. or allowed to return to China. If the extradition is successful, we can expect Canada to bear the brunt of Beijing’s displeasure, no matter what arguments are offered about rule of law.

Related: On Monday, U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau by phone and discussed the detention of “the two Michaels,” the Canadian citizens detained in China in apparent retaliation for Meng’s arrest.

Our guide to China’s tech crackdown published on Monday now has a companion timeline of major events which you can filter by sector, government agency, and official justification.

And then there’s this: “South Korea plans to pursue a formal complaint in response to a Chinese Olympian who was heard repeatedly swearing during a badminton match between the two nations,” reports CNN.

Chén Qīngchén 陈清晨, 24, could be heard shouting [我肏 wǒ cào] a popular Chinese slang term, translated loosely as “f**k”​ in Mandarin, throughout the live televised broadcast of her women’s doubles match against South Korea on Tuesday, July 27.

As CNN points out, the phrase, “though considered impolite, is commonly used in China to express astonishment or amazement — and doesn’t carry the same stigma as its English language equivalent.” You can hear Chen saying it in this Youtube clip.

Our word of the day is Santa Barbara (圣巴巴拉 shèng bābālā)

—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief