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.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency said that if schools move to online-only education in the fall, then student visas could be cancelled and deportations would ensue. Chinese students are the largest group affected.
From books to online posts, the Hong Kong government is cracking down on any information perceived to threaten national security after a new law was imposed by Beijing. Police are claiming powersย to decrypt and censor online messages, and technology companies, including Facebook and Twitter, are refusing to comply.
Tsinghua University law professor Xu Zhangrun, one of the most prominent critics within China of the leadership of Xi Jinping, has been detained in Beijing. Two other critics, Peking University legal scholar Xu Zhiyong and property tycoon Ren Zhiqiang, have been missing for months.
On the first day of Beijingโs new national security law in Hong Kong, 10 protesters were arrested on charges related to the law, and a chill swept over the city. Meanwhile, the U.K. and Taiwan made plans to welcome fleeing Hongkongers.
At around midnight Hong Kong time last night, Chinaโs central government released the text of the new national security law. The law has already intimidated several Hong Kong civil society actors to publicly withdraw from their roles as opposition forces.
India has escalated its border confrontation with China, two weeks after a deadly clash at the Line of Actual Control. This time, cyberspace borders are at stake: Indiaโs Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) announced today that it would completely ban and disable all access within India to 59 China-based app, including TikTok and WeChat.
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) conducted an unprecedented raid of the house of a Labor party politician, Shaoquett Moselmane, this morning. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, they were โsearching for evidence to support allegations of a Chinese government plot unfolding on Australian soil.โ
Tensions remain high in the Himalayas, 10 days after the violent clash that left 20 Indian soldiers dead and, according to both named and anonymous Chinese official sources, a small number of Chinese soldiers with injuries.
Chinese leadership may have miscalculated in its border antics and pushed India to do the one thing Beijing has tried to keep it from doing for many years โ move closer to the United States.