Lucas Niewenhuis is the Newsletter Editor at The China Project. Previously, he has researched China-Africa relations at the Social Science Research Council, interned at the Council on Foreign Relations, and studied Chinese language and culture in Shanghai and Beijing.
Zhang Jun, China’s envoy to the UN, raised concerns over a Security Council report on Afghanistan-based terrorism. The Uyghur militant group that Beijing is particularly concerned about, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), is not considered to be an organized threat by the U.S.
The foreign press corp in China, still coping with the visa cancellations of early 2020, says that Beijing has only dialed up its harassment of journalists in China, including of Chinese staff at international news bureaus.
China is preparing to open up its farmland to genetically enhanced crops as one part of Beijing’s push for more advanced agriculture and self-sufficiency in food supply.
A Bloomberg report suggested that Chinese leader Xi Jinping might have asked his Russian counterpart not to spoil the Olympics with a military offensive in Ukraine. China called the report “a hoax and provocation.”
The U.S. Justice Department dropped its case against Chen Gang, the MIT nanotechnology professor whom it accused a year ago of failing to disclose China ties. The U.S. government “badly…misunderstood the details surrounding scientific and academic collaboration,” said Chen’s lawyer.
The Omicron variant was identified in Beijing, less than three weeks before the city is due to host the Winter Olympics. A city health official said it “cannot be ruled out” that the virus was transmitted via mail from Canada.
Trying to travel to China or Hong Kong in the next month? Expect delays. China has canceled over 140 incoming international flights in the past week due to COVID-19, while Hong Kong has barred all flights from eight countries.
The 2022 Beijing Olympics begins in three and a half weeks. Officials are confident that their “closed-loop” system can keep COVID away from the Games, even as the first local transmissions of the Omicron variant become apparent.
After two weeks of arduous lockdown, during which the residents of Xi’an complained of food shortages and expressed outrage over medical services access, officials now say that the COVID-19 outbreak is under control.
After Lithuania allowed Taiwan to open a “Taiwanese representative office” in its capital, Vilnius, last November, China has escalated its diplomatic and economic pressure on the EU state.