Editor’s note for May 5, 2023
A note for Access newsletter readers from Jeremy Goldkorn.
Dear reader,
Most of this week was a holiday in China for Labor Day, and consumers took full advantage of their post-pandemic freedoms to travel, eat, and spend.
Not everyone is feeling free though: This has not been a relaxing time for people who work at foreign-owned consulting and research firms, or who do anything that might put them at risk from China’s newly expanded espionage laws.
China’s always been a little like this: Selective vision can give you a very different idea of what is happening in the country. Look one way and you see paradise. Look in another direction and you might see only hell. But the contradictions and contrasts seem to be growing more intense by the day.
Our Phrase of the Week is: Abuse of power, or literally, take a chicken feather as a warrant to issue orders (拿着鸡毛当令箭 názhe jīmáo dāng lìngjiàn).
