#chinese politics

[troythecatfish]

14 Palestinian political factions to form a unity government after meeting in China

Over 14 Palestinian political factions met in Beijing, China, to discuss a path forward towards forming a unity government and ending the decades-long split between Gaza and the West Bank. Rapprochement between the leading Palestinian factions would be a significant step, particularly between Hamas, who govern the Gaza Strip, and Fatah, which has partial control over areas of the West Bank, who have been at odds since Hamas foiled a U.S.-backed coup attempt led by Fatah.

Source: Mintpress

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

VPs of Brazil and China call for global peace, celebrate partnerships, sign cooperation agreements

Geraldo Alckmin and Han Zheng co-chaired the Sino-Brazilian High-Level Concertation Commission (Cosban) plenary session in Beijing, China.

Brazilian Vice President and Minister of Development, Industry, Trade, and Services Geraldo Alckmin and Chinese Vice President Han Zheng co-chaired the 7th Plenary Session of the Sino-Brazilian High-Level Concertation Commission (Cosban) on June 6. Founded during President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's first term, Cosban turns 12 years old in 2024, representing a high-level bilateral negotiating venue.

"At a time of great international instability, with armed conflicts taking place in various regions of the planet, Brazil-China relations remain characterized by predictability and stability," said Alckmin. According to Zheng, in light of the shifting and turbulent global landscape, "putting energy into bringing peace and development to the world” is imperative.

In addition to global issues, the two leaders emphasized the 50th anniversary of the Sino-Brazilian relationship, which will be celebrated in 2024. Economic cooperation was another point of convergence.

Alckmin welcomed current Chinese investment in Brazil and invited Chinese companies to contribute with the modernization of Brazilian infrastructure, a project President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s administration has been promoting through the New Growth Acceleration Program (Novo PAC). "I invite all Chinese companies to join the effort to modernize Brazil's infrastructure, which is the New PAC".

Continue reading.

[not-your-asian-fantasy]

“The Chinese government is seeking to erase memory of the Tiananmen Massacre throughout China and in Hong Kong,” said Maya Wang, acting China director at Human Rights Watch. “But 35 years on, the government has been unable to extinguish the flames of remembrance for those risking all to promote respect for democracy and human rights in China.”

[ammg-old2]

I last saw my old professor Abduqadir Jalalidin at his Urumqi apartment in late 2016. Over home-pulled laghman noodles and a couple of bottles of Chinese liquor, we talked and laughed about everything from Uighur literature to American politics. Several years earlier, when I had defended my master’s thesis on Uighur poetry, Jalalidin, himself a famous poet, had sat across from me and asked hard questions. Now we were just friends.

It was a memorable evening, one I’ve thought about many times since learning in early 2018 that Jalalidin had been sent, along with more than a million other Uighurs, to China’s internment camps.

As with my other friends and colleagues who have disappeared into this vast, secretive gulag, months stretched into years with no word from Jalalidin. And then, late this summer, the silence broke. Even in the camps, I learned, my old professor had continued writing poetry. Other inmates had committed his new poems to memory and had managed to transmit one of them beyond the camp gates.

In this forgotten place I have no lover’s touch Each night brings darker dreams, I have no amulet My life is all I ask, I have no other thirst These silent thoughts torment, I have no way to hope

Who I once was, what I’ve become, I cannot know Who could I tell my heart’s desires, I cannot say My love, the temper of the fates I cannot guess I long to go to you, I have no strength to move

Through cracks and crevices I’ve watched the seasons change For news of you I’ve looked in vain to buds and flowers To the marrow of my bones I’ve ached to be with you What road led here, why do I have no road back home

Jalalidin’s poem is powerful testimony to a continuing catastrophe in China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Since 2017, the Chinese state has swept a growing proportion of its Uighur population, along with other Muslim minorities, into an expanding system of camps, prisons and forced labor facilities. A mass sterilization campaign has targeted Uighur women, and the discovery of a multi-ton shipment of human hair from the region, most likely originating from the camps, evokes humanity’s darkest hours.

But my professor’s poem is also testimony to Uighurs’ unique use of poetry as a means of communal survival. Against overwhelming state violence, one might imagine that poetry would offer little recourse. Yet for many Uighurs — including those who risked sharing Jalalidin’s poem — poetry has a power and importance inconceivable in the American context.

[head-post]

China to launch mission to moon’s “hidden” side

China would launch a robotic spacecraft on a round trip to the back side of the moon in the coming days, Reuters reported.

The journey will be the first of three technically challenging missions paving the way for the first landing of a Chinese crew and the establishment of a base at the lunar south pole.

Since the first Chang’e mission in 2007, named after the mythical Chinese moon goddess, China has made great strides in lunar exploration, narrowing the technological gap with the United States and Russia.

In 2020, China brought back samples from the near side of the moon for the first time in over forty years. The mission verified that the country could safely return an unmanned spacecraft to Earth from the lunar surface.

China is expected to launch Chang’e-6 this week using the 2020 mission’s backup spacecraft and collect soil and rocks from the moon’s back side, which is permanently facing away from Earth.

With no direct line of sight to Earth, Chang’e-6 will rely on the recently launched relay satellite orbiting the moon. The same satellite will support the unmanned Chang’e-7 and 8 missions in 2026 and 2028 respectively, when China will begin exploring the south pole in search of water and building a rudimentary outpost with Russia.

China aims to send its astronauts to the moon by 2030.

Read more HERE

[thecurrentevents]

Russia and China vetoed a resolution for a ceasefire proposed by the United States

…I don’t even know how to feel about this anymore. ah, well. thecurrentevents, at your service.

on March 22, 2024, a United States-proposed resolution to a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict failed in the United Nations Security Council. Russia and China, two out of five countries with absolute veto power, vetoed the resolution.

this is the first time there United States is backing a resolution with mentions of a “ceasefire” in it, showing the US’ toughened stance on Israel’s genocide in Gaza. but don’t let this fool you — Biden is losing votes among pro-Palestinian voters, and he’s doing everything he can to get these votes on his side. the GOP isn’t much better though.

according to the United States’ ambassador, this veto was probably a combination of reasons — they don’t like the United States (obvious), and they refuse to condemn Hamas for their actions.

according to the Russian ambassador, the resolution was written with the United States’ political agenda in mind, and the resolution did not go far enough to promise peace for the Palestinians.

according to the Chinese ambassador, the resolution does not clearly condemn Israel’s military campaign in Rafah that can lead to “severe consequences” (Russia, China veto).

considering how the United States vetoed three ceasefire resolutions before, stating it’ll disrupt hostage negotiations and Israel’s “self-defense” against Hamas, political agenda is likely in the resolution. this also shows that US-Russia/China relations are at an all time low. it’s a bad political era to be alive, I guess?

still. I hope a ceasefire attempt goes through soon. whenever that is.

sources underneath the cut:

US call for Gaza ceasefire runs into Russia-China veto at UN - New York Times

Russia, China veto US-led UN resolution on Gaza ceasefire - Reuters

[quotesfrommyreading]

Fate has placed Taiwan and Ukraine in similar positions. Both have giant neighbors who once ruled them as imperial possessions. Both have undergone democratic transformations and have thus become an ideological danger to the autocrats who covet their territory. Just as Putin has made the erasure of Ukraine’s sovereignty central to his political project, Xi has vowed to unify China and Taiwan, by force if necessary. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned in October that China may be working on a “much faster timeline” for dealing—somehow—with Taiwan. U.S. military and intelligence leaders have pointed to 2027 as a potential time frame for an invasion, believing that China’s military modernization will have advanced sufficiently by then.

  —  Taiwan Wants China to Think Twice About an Invasion

[gudaho]

China updating their marriage laws:

We got rid of the family registry requirement so you no longer need parental permission to get married!

We made it more difficult to divorce by saying that if one party backs out of the divorce process then it stops entirely and the couple remains married

[idontknowwhyimhere102]

I'm have a strong hatred for all of them.

[tuulikki]

Do you ever read a case of censorship so ludicrous that you feel like you slipped into an parody alternate universe

To evade censorship on the internet, Chinese resort to code words — so much so that academics and writers lament the deterioration of the Chinese language. Young people often use abbreviations of Pinyin, the Romanized spelling of Chinese characters, for anything that can be construed as sensitive or taboo. I’ve seen Chinese criticizing my columns about the Chinese government by saying they loved their “zf,” abbreviation for Zhengfu, or government. Even when defending the state, they knew they were venturing into treacherous terrains.

- Li Yuan

[maniacwatchestheworld]

So I decided to skim IRL Jackie Chan's Wikipedia page and just... Oh nooooooooooo! He's anti-democracy, pro-Beijing when it comes to Hong Kong politics! That's very sad for me... Quite a shame... But I guess that's just what happens when you get rich... Still, I suppose that I can respect his work and what he's done for the film industry as a whole and not like his politics at the same time. A shame for me for certain, but I guess that I can't exactly blame the man. He probably has his reasons and is ultimately just a person with his own thoughts, feelings, and opinions, even if I disagree with them. :/

But in my heart of hearts, the Jackie Chan in the cartoon version of him from Jackie Chan Adventures is pro-democracy. I can believe that in my heart. :p

(For the record, in terms of Hong Kong politics, I tend to be on the side of the people who live in an area getting to determine how they want to be led. And given the mass protest movements within the last 10 years, it seems that Hong Kong wants to maintain their democracy and be allowed to conduct their own affairs separate from the mainland and am very disappointed and angry at both China for violating the treaty that gave them Hong Kong, and for England for not enforcing their treaty. I do not think that it's a stretch to say that what China has been doing to Hong Kong is an act of colonization and I am generally against colonization. :/ I may not talk about it a lot but I DO care about politics, especially when it comes to Hong Kong.)

[troythecatfish]

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

US and Chinese soldiers take part in joint military exercises in Brazil

The United States and China may be on hostile terms, but the situation still leaves room for cooperation, even in areas as sensitive as military affairs. Dozens of U.S. and Chinese soldiers, specifically naval infantry, are participating alongside 3,000 Brazilian soldiers in joint military exercises in Formosa, in central Brazil.

Brazil is a good choice for this meeting as it is a regional power that takes a pragmatic approach to foreign policy — avoiding hostility in favor of dialogue and cooperation — and Beijing and Washington are, respectively, its first and second-biggest trade partners.

Most of the troops taking part in the military exercises — which involve airplanes, tanks, armored vehicles, amphibious vehicles and missile launchers — are from Brazil. The U.S. delegation has 56 soldiers, while the Chinese delegation has 33 riflemen, according to the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo. In a sign of Brazil’s historically broad and eclectic alliances, the drills also include uniformed personnel from Mexico, South Africa, Argentina, Italy, Pakistan, the Republic of Congo, France and Nigeria, although in more modest numbers. Last year, China only sent military observers to these exercises, not soldiers, the Brazilian Navy reported.

With such moves, Brazil is emphasizing its traditional stance on foreign policy, which President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has expanded with the help of his long-time advisor on international affairs, Celso Amorim. The fact that soldiers from the superpowers are in Brazil is a sign of how the country is seeking to play an important role in global politics. “Brazil wants to be a mediator in the international system, to mediate between the South and the North, and between those antagonistic universes of geopolitics that are Eurasia, led by China and Russia, and the Atlanticist bloc, led by the United States and Europe,” explains Pedro Costa Júnior, an international analyst from the University of São Paulo.

Continue reading.

[kneedeepincynade]

I propose a toast to Xi Jinping leader of the free world for his re-election as chairman! His leadership has led China into a glorious and shining future and now he shall lead the free world there as well!

The post is machine translated

Translation at the bottom

The collective is on telegram

(Photos and video from the event)

(Foto e video dall'evento)

⚠️ XI JINPING È STATO RIELETTO PRESIDENTE DELLA REPUBBLICA POPOLARE CINESE E DELLA COMMISSIONE MILITARE CENTRALE ⚠️

🇨🇳 Oggi, 10 marzo, il Compagno Xi Jinping - Segretario Generale del Partito Comunista Cinese - è stato rieletto, al 14° Congresso Nazionale del Popolo, come Presidente della Repubblica Popolare Cinese e della Commissione Militare Centrale ⭐️

🚩 Il Presidente Cinese ha prestato il Giuramento:

💬 "Mi impegno a essere fedele alla Costituzione della Repubblica Popolare Cinese, salvaguardare l'Autorità della Costituzione, adempiere ai miei obblighi legali, essere fedele al Paese e al Popolo, essere impegnato e onesto nel mio dovere, accettare la supervisione del Popolo e lavorare per un Grande Paese Socialista Moderno che sia Prospero, Forte, Democratico, Culturalmente Avanzato, Armonioso e Bello. Io, Xi Jinping, faccio questo Giuramento" 🇨🇳

💕 Dopodiché, il Presidente Cinese si è inchinato di fronte ai Delegati del Congresso e all'Emblema della Repubblica Popolare 🇨🇳

🌸 Iscriviti 👉 @collettivoshaoshan

⚠️ XI JINPING RE-ELECTED CHAIRMAN OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA AND THE CENTRAL MILITARY COMMISSION ⚠️

🇨🇳 Today, March 10, Comrade Xi Jinping - General Secretary of the Communist Party of China - was re-elected, at the 14th National People's Congress, as President of the People's Republic of China and of the Central Military Commission ⭐️

🚩 The Chinese President took the Oath:

💬 "I pledge to be faithful to the Constitution of the People's Republic of China, safeguard the Authority of the Constitution, fulfill my legal obligations, be loyal to the country and the People, be committed and honest in my duty, accept the People's supervision, and work for a Great Modern Socialist Country that is Prosperous, Strong, Democratic, Culturally Advanced, Harmonious and Beautiful. I, Xi Jinping, take this Oath" 🇨🇳

💕 After that, the Chinese President bowed to the Congress Delegates and the Emblem of the People's Republic 🇨🇳

🌸 Subscribe 👉 @collettivoshaoshan

[ammg-old2]

Until a decade ago, the pilgrims would travel by bus, car, donkey and foot to gather by the thousands at the Imam Asim Shrine in the desert on China’s western frontier.

They trudged through the sand dunes to kneel at the sacred site dedicated to Imam Asim, a Muslim holy man who helped defeat the Buddhist kingdom that had ruled here over a thousand years ago. The devotees were Uighurs, a mostly Muslim ethnic minority, and often joined annual festivals to pray for abundant harvests, good health and strong babies.

They tied strips of cloth carrying prayerful messages to wooden posts around and near the shrine. They delighted in fairground amusements on the site’s edge, where magicians, wrestlers and musicians entertained the crowds. They clustered around storytellers reciting ancient tales.

“It was not just a pilgrimage. There were performers, games, food, seesaws for the children, poetry reading, and a whole area for story-telling,” said Tamar Mayer, a professor at Middlebury College who visited the Imam Asim Shrine for research in 2008 and 2009. “It was still so full of people, and full of life.”

Even then the authorities were trying to limit the crowds at the shrine with checkpoints. By 2014, pilgrims had been almost entirely banned. And by last year, much of the shrine had been demolished. Wooden fences and poles that once encircled the tomb and held fluttering prayer flags had been torn down. Satellite images show that a mosque at the site was leveled. All that remained was the mud-brick building marking the tomb of Imam Asim, which appeared to be intact amid the ruins.

The Chinese authorities have in recent years closed and demolished many of the major shrines, mosques and other holy sites across Xinjiang that have long preserved the culture and Islamic beliefs of the region’s Muslims.

The effort to close off and erase these sites is part of China’s broader campaign to turn the region’s Uighurs, Kazakhs and members of other Central Asian ethnic groups into loyal followers of the Communist Party. The assimilation drive has led to the detention of hundreds of thousands in indoctrination centers.

The new report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a research group based in Canberra, systematically gauges the degree of destruction and alteration to religious sites in recent years. It estimated that around 8,500 mosques across Xinjiang have been completely demolished since 2017 — more than a third of the number of mosques the government says are in the region.

“What it does show is a campaign of demolition and erasure that is unprecedented since the Cultural Revolution,” said Nathan Ruser, the researcher at the institute who led the analysis. During the decade-long turmoil that unfolded from 1966 under Mao Zedong, many mosques and other religious sites were destroyed.

The institute, also known as ASPI, compiled a randomized sample of 533 known mosque sites across Xinjiang, and analyzed satellite images of each site taken at different times to assess changes. It studied the state of the region’s shrines, cemeteries and other sacred sites through a sample of 382 locations taken from a state-sponsored survey and online records.

[head-post]

Philippine sailors seriously injured in collision in South China Sea

At least eight Philippine sailors were injured on Monday when the Chinese Coast Guard “searched” a Philippine vessel in the disputed waters of the South China Sea, Philippine media reported on Wednesday.

During a clash between the two countries’ forces in the disputed South China Sea, a member of the armed forces had his finger cut off, the Philippine media outlet Inquirer reported, citing official sources.

The Philippine military confirmed on Tuesday that a navy sailor was “severely injured” after “deliberately ramming at high speed” a Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) ship during a resupply mission.

Philippine officials also claimed that CCG personnel pierced Navy boats with their bolos and also took possession of their weapons.

“We have arms, but we did not use those. We don’t want to start a war,” the media outlet quoted Philippines chief General Romeo Brawner Jr. as saying and added their soldiers fought with bare hands to prevent CCG from hitting them.

Chinese Coast Guard personnel on Monday “blocked, boarded and searched” a Philippine vessel that “trespassed” in waters near Ren’ai, a submerged reef in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.

In a new escalation, the CCG forcibly removed the vessel from the disputed waters, where it “attempted to send materials to its illegally grounded warship,” the CCG said.

New Rules for Philippine Ships

It was the first incident since the CCG implemented its new rules of engagement in the vast disputed sea on Saturday. Under the new rules, China can detain suspected trespassers for up to 60 days.

The Philippine vessel was on a resupply mission for the grounded World War II warship BRP Sierra Madre on a shoal claimed by both Beijing and Manila.

Beijing accused Manila of “violating” the International Regulations for the Prevention of Collisions at Sea, while Manila called China’s claims “deceptive and misleading.”

The two maritime neighbours have conflicting claims to the Second Thomas Shoal – also known as Ayungin Shoal, Bai Co May, and Ren’ai Jiao – a submerged reef near the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.

Read more HERE