China

Wei Sze, Edward Li and Ha Syut for RFA Cantonese, and Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin Hong Kong’s lawmakers have been brainstorming new ways to attract and keep fresh talent in the city, including possible speed dating events, amid a mass wave of emigration by middle-class professionals and young families fleeing an ongoing political clampdown. Since the passing of its first national security law in 2020, Hong Kong’s government has been fighting to replace those who leave with talent schemes encouraging people to move to the city to live and work, with some success to date. While at least 144,000 had left under the United Kingdom’s British National Overseas visa scheme by the end of March 2024, the city’s population rebounded by 170,000 in 2023, suggesting the highest immigration numbers in...

Paul Eckert China remains officially agnostic about North Korea’s deployment of troops to help Russia’s war in Ukraine – a dispatch that analysts say holds potential trouble for Pyongyang’s main backer Beijing even as both communist nations share the goal of supporting Vladimir Putin. On Friday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian repeated the line Beijing has used in the face of increasingly definitive and detailed accounts of the dispatch to, and movements within, Russia of Korean People’s Army forces from the North. “China does not have information on that and our position on the Ukraine crisis is consistent and clear. We always believe that all parties need to promote the deescalation of the situation and strive for a political settlement,” Lin said at Friday’s daily news...

Paul Eckert for RFA Evidence is mounting of clandestine Chinese influence operations in the heart of America. Just in the last few months, a former aide to the governor of New York state and her husband were arrested for alleged illicit activities promoting the interests of China; a Chinese democracy activist was arrested and accused of spying for China; and a historian was convicted of being an agent for Beijing. The three separate cases of former Albany functionary Linda Sun, dissident Yuanjun Tang and author Wang Shujun took place in New York alone. And they were not the first cases of alleged Chinese influence operations targeting immigrants from China in the Big Apple. Those cases came to light as a detailed investigation by the Washington Post revealed that China’s diplomats and ...

RFA Staff Vietnamese fishermen have been in Chinese detention in the Paracel archipelago for more than six months, a Chinese think tank has reported, days after Vietnam demanded that China release all detained fishermen and their boats and stop its harassment of them. The Beijing-based South China Sea Probing Initiative, or SCSPI, a government-sanctioned think tank, said on the social media platform X that the fishermen “were detained in April and May” for illegally fishing activities in the waters around the Paracels. It did not provide other details including the number of detainees. Vietnam, China and Taiwan all claim sovereignty over the island chain, known as Xisha islands in Chinese and Hoang Sa in Vietnam, but Beijing has been controlling the entire area since 1974, after defeati...

Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin Read this story in Chinese The number of couples getting married in China fell rapidly in the first nine months of 2024 by nearly 1 million registrations compared to last year, official statistics show, amid an economic slump and changing attitudes toward marriage. China registered 4.747 million marriages in the three quarters ending Sept. 30, a drop of 943,000 year-on-year. First marriages have plummeted by nearly 56% over the past nine years, according to the 2023 China Statistical Yearbook. The trend is contributing to a sharp decline in birth-rates amid a shrinking, aging population. Young people are increasingly avoiding marriage, having children and buying a home amid a tanking economy and rampant youth unemployment, they told RFA Mandarin in recent i...

Zhu Liye and Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin Read this story in Chinese Chinese rights lawyer Wang Yu has been hospitalized after her health deteriorated following a nine-day hunger strike, which she began in protest during her detention following an Oct. 23 altercation with police outside a court building in the northern province of Hebei. Wang was released from Weicheng County Detention Center on Nov. 1 after a brief administrative detention for “disrupting public order” following the fracas, and was taken straight to hospital by her husband and fellow rights attorney Bao Longjun, Bao told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview. When she got out, Wang was “completely hunched over and unable to walk” on her release from the detention center, and he carried her on his back, shocked at how litt...

Jenny Tang for RFA Mandarin Read coverage of this topic in Chinese As American voters head to the polls on Tuesday, “U.S. election” has emerged as a hot search topic on China’s Weibo, with official media mostly focusing on preparations for potential violence and unrest in Washington. Using the hashtags “#Stores nail up windows ahead of US election#” and “#Iron mesh installed on U.S. streets in case of post-election riots#,” state broadcaster CCTV reported on security measures in Washington ahead of the elections. “Many stores near the White House have boarded up their windows,” the station said in a report that headed up search results for “U.S. election” on Weibo on Tuesday, while other media reports focused on “crazy levels” of spending on campaigns. Throughout the campaign, Chinese...

  FILE - Visitors check the China-made BYD ATTO 3 at the IAA motor show in Munich, Germany, on Sept. 8, 2023. GENEVA — China has moved forward with a complaint at the World Trade Organization that alleges the European Union has improperly set anti-subsidy tariffs on new Chinese-made electric vehicles. The Chinese diplomatic mission to the WTO said Monday it "strongly opposes" the measures and insisted its move was designed to protect the EV industry and support a global transition toward greener technologies. The European bloc announced last month it was imposing import duties of up to 35% on electric vehicles from China, alleging the Chinese exports were unfairly undercutting EU industry prices. The duties are set to remain ...

  FILE - A Taiwanese F-16 fighter jet flies next to a Chinese H-6 bomber, top, in Taiwan's airspace, in this handout photo taken and released Feb. 10, 2020, by Taiwan's defense ministry. Taipei, Taiwan — Taiwan\'s defense ministry said Sunday it had spotted 35 Chinese military aircraft, including fighters and bombers, flying to the island\'s south on the way to exercises in the Pacific, a second day in a row it has reported such activities. China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory despite the strong objections of the government in Taipei, regularly sends its military in the skies and waters near the island seeking to enforce its sovereignty claims. China\'s defense ministry did not respond to a requ...