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.
Beijing wants to play a bigger role in the Middle East and the region’s complicated geopolitics. It’s not just about oil: Saudi Arabia, for example, is supplying China with not just energy security, but also political cover for its policies in Xinjiang.
The Chinese and Russian foreign ministers condemned Western nations for “politicizing human rights issues” with sanctions. Beijing separately lashed out at “the West,” accusing at least half a dozen nations of hypocrisy and saying they had no right to lecture China.
Today, the European Union issued its first sanctions on China since 1989, condemning Beijing’s abuse of Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Canada, Britain, and the U.S. also issued new Xinjiang-focused sanctions. Beijing immediately retaliated against the EU with sanctions of its own.
In a high-level meeting in Alaska, top U.S. officials confronted China about breaking international rules, saying Beijing was making the world “far more violent and unstable.” China shot back by accusing the U.S. of hypocrisy on a range of issues, including human rights.
As senior diplomats from the U.S. and China prepare to meet in Alaska tomorrow, expectations are extremely low. Meanwhile, the U.S. sanctioned 24 officials for having undermined Hong Kong’s autonomy, and the EU reportedly approved sanctions in response to human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
With five approved COVID-19 vaccines, China aims to give shots to 40% of its population in the next four months, while also delivering huge amounts of doses to Indonesia, Brazil, and Mexico.
In the most violent day in Myanmar since the military coup d’état six weeks ago, dozens were killed and Chinese factories were attacked in the suburbs of Yangon on Sunday. Beijing walked a fine line in its response.
One billion doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be produced in India and distributed to Southeast Asian countries, with the help of the U.S., Japan, and Australia. The initiative, an output of the informal “Quad” alliance, is an attempt to counter Chinese vaccine diplomacy in the region.
As expected, the National People’s Congress in Beijing passed a resolution to change the electoral system in Hong Kong. The new rules will effectively ensure that pro-democracy politicians remain in a permanent minority in the territory.