Schedium

Xi Jinping (AI-generated image) ______ On June 20, US President Joe Biden called People's Republic of China (PRC) leader Xi Jinping a “dictator” during a speech at a fundraiser in California.  Referring to the PRC spy balloon shot down on February 4 of this year, Biden said that Xi Jinping "got very upset" because "he didn’t know it was there", adding that it is "a great embarrassment for dictators" when they don't know that something as important as this has happened.  PRC foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said that Biden’s comments were "extremely absurd" and a "political provocation" which "seriously violated China’s political dignity". The US ambassador to the PRC was reportedly reprimanded over the comments. Several media organisations immediately rushed to give voice to Beijing's complaints about that characterisation.  "Biden calling Xi a dictator is his latest ad-lib to anger a foreign capital,...

(source: www.gov.cn)  On January 22 the General Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China (PRC) issued a notice  stating that private kindergartens in urban residential communities must all be handed over to local education authorities to be turned into public or non-profit kindergartens. China currently has a system in which  public kindergartens , which are run by local authorities and use material provided by the government, compete with private ones, which enjoy a certain independence and can choose their own textbooks.  Over the past two decades private kindergartens have become a booming business. According to Beijing-based business consultancy ResearchInChina, between 2003 and 2015 private kindergartens grew from 55,000 to 143,000, while only 15,000 public kindergartens were opened during the same period. From 1997 to 2017, the number of children attending public kindergartens decreased from 95% to 44%. However...

Tsinghua University, main administrative building (by pfctdayelise via Wikimedia Commons ) German journalism student David Missal has been expelled from China after he filmed a documentary about human rights activists.  The 24-year-old was pursuing a master's programme at the prestigious Tsinghua University, in the Chinese capital Beijing. But on Sunday, August 12, he left the country after Chinese immigration authorities shortened his residence permit and denied him a visa extension.  Missal told Hong Kong Free Press that he had applied for a visa extension two months ago. On August 10 he went to the Entry-Exit Administration and was informed that his visa would not be renewed because he had engaged in activities that were not covered by his student visa. He was told that he had ten days to leave the country. “I asked them what kind of activities did I do… and they said you should know by yourself,” Missal said. He had received a DAAD scholarship for two year...

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China (ROC, Taiwan) (by Voice of America via Wikimedia Commons ) The Taiwanese Foreign Ministry has deleted from its official account a tweet that mocked China for blocking the release of Christopher Robin , a live-action drama about Winnie the Pooh . According to the Hollywood Reporter,  the Chinese government  has not allowed the Disney film to be screened in the country. The report cited Beijing's crackdown on images of the Winnie the Pooh character as the reason for the ban. On August 8 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China (ROC, Taiwan) posted on its official  Twitter  account a tweet mocking China's ban on Winnie the Pooh.  " Taiwan 's #OhBear is dismayed at the ban slapped on his cousin Winnie's latest film by censors in #China. Make no mistake: All bears are created equal in #Taiwan & @DisneyCRobin is screening nationwide," the tweet read.  OhBear  is...

(Image by DrRandomFactor via Wikimedia Commons ) On August 3rd the State Council of the People's Republic of China (PRC) announced the Communist government's decision to abolish the "Work Permit For Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau Employees On The Mainland" (台港澳人員在內地就業許可). Residents of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau will no longer be required to apply for permits to work in mainland China and will be able to seek employment without having to go through complex bureaucratic procedures. The move is part of China's carrot and stick approach towards Taiwan, which Beijing considers an integral part of its territory despite the fact that the PRC never exercised de jure or de facto control over the island. China claims that it will use force to bring about unification if all peaceful options are exhausted. At the same time, it tries to co-opt Taiwanese citizens using its status as an economic powerhouse. Taiwanese people working in China face pressur...

Rumours about the arrest of Chinese model and actress Fan Bingbing on charges of tax evasion have spread on Chinese media. As Apple Daily reports, celebrity Fan Bingbing and her younger brother Fan Chengcheng have allegedly been detained for taking part in a tax evasion scheme alongside her manager, Mu Xiaoguang. Mu has also allegedly been charged with destroying incriminating evidence. On May 28 TV anchor Cui Yongyuan posted on Weibo a contract that showed Fan Bingbing being paid $1.56 million (RMB10 million) for four days’ work on director Feng Xiaogang's film “Cell Phone 2.”  Later Cui released another contract worth $7.8 million (RMB50 million) for the same work. He alleged that Fan had declared to tax authorities only the first contract, thus avoiding to pay taxes on the second, larger amount.  Double-contracts for the purpose of tax evasion are known in China as "yin-yang contracts".  Although the Chinese government censored Cui's ...

A Chinese woman has been allegedly taken to a psychiatric hospital after she splashed ink on a poster of President Xi Jinping. Dong Yaoqiong, a 29-year-old Chinese woman from Hunan Province, hit the headlines on July 4 after she live-streamed herself  splashing ink on a poster of the country's leader in Shanghai. In the video, which she posted on Twitter and soon went viral, she said that she opposed Xi Jinping's despotic one-man rule and the Communist Party's oppressive mind control.  Another tweet sent later that day from her account showed three police officers, two uniformed and one in plainclothes, standing outside her home. Dong subsequently disappeared, and her Twitter account under the handle @feefeefly was deactivated. In the meantime her account has been reactivated, but only the posts prior to the ink-spraying video are visible.  Embed from Getty Images On July 18 authorities in China 's Guangdong Province detained artist and political acti...

The Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (via Wikimedia Commons) In an article published on Chinese state-run news outlet People's Daily on June 28, the Liaison Office of Chinese central government in Hong Kong argued that Xi Jinping Thought  must be applied to the former British colony in order to promote nationalism and solve Hong Kong's "long-term problems". The op-ed quotes a speech that Xi Jinping gave during a visit to Hong Kong in the summer of 2017 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the handover. "As a special administrative area under the direct jurisdiction of the Central People's Government, Hong Kong has since the day of the handover once again become part of the nation's system of government," Xi had said.  According to the Liaison Office , Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era is "the most recent outcome of Chi...

The Red Detachment of Women (image by Byron Schumaker via Wikimedia Commons) On May 1 China adopted a new law that promotes "patriotism and socialist core values" and criminalizes acts that "defame heroes and martyrs," or "distort and diminish their deeds." The law also makes it illegal to "glorify invasions." The law is part of a larger scheme which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been pursuing since President Xi Jinping took office in 2012. His vision is to end the era of political indifference brought about by economic development. In 2005 The New York Times remarked that the CCP had been "plagued by the loss of ideological enthusiasm and the rampancy of corruption among its members for the past two decades." Xi Jinping has sought to reverse that trend. Using traditional tools of Communist brainwashing, he wants Party ideology to be once again at the centre of people's lives. In a 2013 speech Xi emphasi...

President Donald J. Trump and President Xi Jinping on July 8, 2017 (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead, via Wikimedia Commons) On May 4 the Trump administration demanded that the Chinese government implement measures to cut its $200 trade surplus with the United States, lower import tariffs and reduce advanced technology subsidies. A US delegation headed by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin  arrived in Beijing on May 3 to hold  trade talks  with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He. Chinese media published a document allegedly submitted by the US delegation to the Chinese side during the negotiations. "At present, the United States-China trade relationship is significantly imbalanced," the paper states. "United States investment and the sale of services into China remain severely constrained. China's industrial policies now targeting U.S. technologies and intellectual property pose significant economic and security concerns to the United States. ...

Celebrations in Tahrir Square after Omar Soliman's statement that concerns Mubarak's resignation. February 11, 2011 (By Jonathan Rashad - Flickr , [CC BY 2.0] via Wikimedia Commons) In October 2011 China's state-run newspaper China Daily published an op-ed by former Italian Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema about the Arab Spring , a series of anti-government protests which erupted in 2010 across the Muslim world. D'Alema wrote: "The Arab upheavals are a by-product of the inexorable process of globalization in the twenty-first century ... Only by fully understanding the demands and grievances of these Arab revolutionaries will the West be able to give the region appropriate support – and this support is critical. The Arab revolts have not been directed against the West – on the contrary, they have been fed by Western democratic principles and values – but they could yet produce a reactionary backlash. "Western countries' support must be un...

Mao Zedong once said that Communist cadres "must be models in applying the Party's democratic centralism, must master the method of leadership based on the principle of 'from the masses, to the masses', and must cultivate a democratic style and be good at listening to the masses".  "Listening to the masses" - whatever this may mean - has become a common catchphrase of Xi Jinping 's new vision for China's Communism . In perfect Maoist rhetorical style, Xi coats his ideology in vague high-sounding phrases, a vagueness that suits a Party leader who doesn't have to engage in debates with opponents and who needs ideological ambiguity in order to rule. Xi's last attempt at reviving the old Maoist principle of "listening to the masses" is the strengthening of Communist China's system of popular petitions , the so-called xinfang (信访).  The xinfang system dates back to 1951, when the Government Administration Council is...

Xi Jinping: Consolidation of power (photo by By 美国之音 )  In an article published on Taiwan 's website Apple Daily , Wang Dan casts away all hopes that the People's Republic of China might eventually move towards democracy. On the contrary. Under the leadership of Xi Jinping , he writes, the Communist Party is undergoing a process of "Fascistisation" (中共的法西斯化).  Wang Dan is a prominent Chinese political thinker and activist, but one whose fate has been tragically shaped by Communist media censorship. His name has been erased from mainland China's collective memory and history, just like the political upheaval of which he was a leader in 1989. During that decade, in which China's authorities cautiously allowed an unprecedented degree of freedom, Wang Dan was one of the organisers of the "Democratic Salon", a study group and discussion platform on the campus of Beijing University. Wang Dan was a twenty-year-old student who, like many other...