Hereโs a wild story out of Chinaโs entertainment industry: Fร n Bฤซngbฤซng ่ๅฐๅฐ, a superstar actress who fell out of favor in the past year due to a tax evasion scandal, is being โdigitally scrubbedโ from a TV drama in which she stars. One of her co-stars, Gฤo Yรบnxiรกng ้ซไบ็ฟ, who was accused of sexual assault in Australia, is also being retroactively replaced.
The U.S. has become the first country to sanction any Chinese company or official for abuses in Xinjiang. The moves to sanction companies and officials were welcomed by human rights activists, but some of the implementation and timing may not have been what they were hoping for.
Video games are furious at Blizzard, after it suspended Chung โBlitzchungโ Ng Wai, a pro Hearthstone player from Hong Kong, for shouting โLiberate Hong Kong. Revolution of our age!โ in a post-match interview. Blizzard has since lessened Blitzchung's punishment, but has doubled down on its policy to punish political speech from professional gamers.
After six days of full-court pressure on the NBA because Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey had tweeted his support for Hong Kong protesters, China relented on October 10, telling state media outlets to "cool down" their coverage. But the NBA still has a huge amount at stake in China, and one critical comment on China from a player or coach could land the whole league in trouble again.
Last Friday, 463 days since the first round of large-scale tariffs kicked off the first great Sino-American trade war of the 21st century, President Trump announced a deal. Except it wasn't in writing. And China didn't confirm it. It was, as Scott Kennedy put it, an "invisible deal."
This weekโs Sinica Podcast is now live. Jude Blanchette, the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), joins...
Photo credit: The China Project illustration A rare bit of positive U.S.-China business news:ย While many sectors of the Chinese economy remain unfriendly to โ or...
Photo credit: The China Project illustration On October 3, President Trump publicly called on China to interfere in the 2020 U.S. presidential election by investigating...
Photo credit: Getty Images On October 1, the Peopleโs Republic of China celebrated its 70th birthday, and Beijing pulled out all the stops to put...