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☆ China’s Extreme Fan Culture Makes Olympic Gold a Mixed Blessing
▼ + stars: | 2024-08-14 | by ( Vivian Wang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A gold medalist diver’s mother said she was afraid for her daughter to come home after their hometown was swarmed with her supporters. A champion swimmer whose hotel was staked out by admirers disbanded his official fan group and told an interviewer he would rather have performed worse if it meant he would be left alone. After a stellar run at the Paris Olympics, where China tied the United States for the most gold medals, Chinese athletes are now facing a darker side of that success: extreme fans. Celebrities globally have to deal with fans who are sometimes invasive, but in China this phenomenon can be especially intense. Some fans stalk their idols and sell their photos or personal information.

Persons: diver’s Organizations: Paris Olympics Locations: China, United States

☆ Why Chinese Propaganda Loves Foreign Travel Bloggers
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-31 | by ( Vivian Wang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Spend some time browsing YouTube or Instagram and you might come across a growing new genre: China travel vlogs. The videos are even more popular on Chinese social media. YouTube and Instagram are banned in China, but Chinese users have found ways to reshare them to Chinese sites, to avid followings. The bloggers have been interviewed by Chinese state media and their experiences promoted with trending hashtags such as “Foreign tourists have become our internet spokespeople.”The emergence of these videos reflects the return of foreign travelers to China after the country isolated itself for three years during the Covid pandemic. Travel bloggers have leaped at the chance to see a country to which they previously had limited access.

Persons: marveling Organizations: YouTube Locations: China, Shanghai, British, Xinjiang

☆ What’s It Like Traveling to China These Days?
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-31 | by ( Vivian Wang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

By some measures, visiting China has never been easier. China has been making a huge push to attract foreign tourists in recent months. The goal is to signal that China is open for business — and fun! The government is especially keen to attract visitors as it tries to rev up growth. China also wants to show that it is still connected to the world, despite tensions with the West and the growing reach of its security apparatus at home.

Persons: — Organizations: West Locations: China, Beijing

Israel and Egypt have privately discussed a possible withdrawal of Israeli soldiers from Gaza’s border with Egypt, according to two Israeli officials and a senior Western diplomat, a shift that could remove one of the main obstacles to a cease-fire deal with Hamas. After more than nine months of war in the Gaza Strip, the discussions between Israel and Egypt are among a flurry of diplomatic actions on multiple continents aimed at achieving a truce and putting the enclave on a path toward postwar governance. Officials from both Hamas, which ruled Gaza before the war, and Fatah, the political faction that controls the Palestinian Authority, said Monday that China will host meetings with them next week in an effort to bridge gaps between the rival Palestinian groups. And Israel is dispatching its national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, to Washington this week for meetings at the White House, according to a statement from the Israeli prime minister’s office.

Persons: Fatah, Tzachi Organizations: Hamas, Palestinian Authority, White Locations: Israel, Egypt, Gaza’s, Western, Gaza, China, Washington

The debate between Donald J. Trump and President Biden had analysts in Asia fretting. During Thursday night’s debate, President Biden told former President Donald J. Trump that the United States is the “envy of the world.”After watching their performance, many of America’s friends might beg to differ. In Europe and Asia, the back-and-forth between the blustering Mr. Trump and the faltering Mr. Biden set analysts fretting — and not just about who might win the election in November. Image Mr. Biden leaving the debate stage. Kasit Piromya, Thailand’s foreign minister from 2008 to 2011 and a former ambassador to the United States, lamented the state of American politics.

Persons: Donald J, Trump, Biden, ”, fretting —, ” Simon Canning, ” Sergey Radchenko, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, “, Putin, “ I’ve, Mr, Kenny Holston, François Heisbourg, Trump’s, “ I’m, Heisbourg, Radoslaw Sikorski, Marcus Aurelius, Commodus, Sikorski, Joe Biden’s, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Daniela Schwarzer, Bogdan Butkevych, “ Trump, Chan Heng Chee, Ms, Chan, Lee Byong, ’ ”, Koichi Nakano, Haiyun Jiang, Narendra Modi, Tara Kartha, —, Shen Dingli, don’t, Kasit, Damien Cave, Lee Wee, Choe Sang, Vivian Wang, Camille Elemia, Mujib Mashal, Ségolène Le Stradic, Marc Santora Organizations: Johns Hopkins School, International Studies, —, Mr, Russia, New York Times, Trump, Bertelsmann Foundation, Washington , D.C, Credit, Kremlin, Kyiv Independent, Biden unnerves, Institute for Far Eastern, Kyungnam University, Sophia University, The New York Times, Washington, National Security Council of, ”, Weibo Locations: Asia, Australian, United States, Europe, Australia, Washington, Russia, China, North Korea, Ukraine, Lebanon, Iran, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Gaza, Jerusalem, France, Washington ,, American, Ukrainian, North, Seoul, “, United, Tokyo, The New York Times India, National Security Council of India, New Delhi, Beijing, India, Communist, Shanghai, U.S, Southeast Asia

☆ China’s Anguished Debate: Do Its Children Have a Crime Problem?
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-26 | by ( Vivian Wang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The boy who the police say killed Xinyue was 13 years old at the time. As his trial opens on Wednesday, it will try to answer a question gripping Chinese society: How should China deal with young children accused of heinous crimes? Countries around the world have long struggled to balance punishment and forgiveness for children. But the debate is especially notable in China, where a history of relative leniency toward young offenders stands in stark contrast to the limited rights of adult criminal defendants. For decades, the government has emphasized educating and rehabilitating juvenile offenders, rather than imprisoning them.

Persons: Gong Junli, Xinyue Locations: China

At least 47 people have died in southern China’s Guangdong Province after torrential rains set off flooding and landslides, according to the Chinese authorities. The city of Meizhou, home to about 3.8 million people, began experiencing “once-in-a-century” rainfall last week, according to state media. Initially, officials reported that nine people in Meizhou had died. But on Friday afternoon, the death toll leaped dramatically, as officials reported an additional 38 deaths in Pingyuan, a county under Meizhou’s jurisdiction. More than 100,000 people were evacuated, state media said.

Persons: “, Meizhou Locations: China’s Guangdong Province, Meizhou, Pingyuan

☆ Xi Jinping’s Recipe for Total Control: An Army of Eyes and Ears
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-25 | by ( Vivian Wang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The wall in the police station was covered in sheets of paper, one for every building in the sprawling Beijing apartment complex. Each sheet was further broken down by unit, with names, phone numbers and other information on the residents. Perhaps the most important detail, though, was how each unit was color-coded. Then he leaned forward to mark a third-floor apartment in yellow. The residents in that unit changed often, and therefore were “high risk,” his note said.

Persons: “ I’ve Locations: Beijing

☆ This ‘Russian’ Woman Loves China. Too Bad She’s a Deepfake.
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-20 | by ( Vivian Wang | Siyi Zhao | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

But her lip movements don’t quite match the audio of the videos, which were posted recently to an account using the name “Ladina.” That is because it is footage of Shadé Zahrai, an Australian career strategist with more than 1.7 million TikTok followers, that has been modified using artificial intelligence. Someone dubbed Ms. Zahrai’s video clips with a voice speaking Mandarin Chinese to make it seem that she was peddling Russian products. Welcome to a flourishing genre on Chinese social media: A.I.-manipulated videos that use young, purportedly Russian, women to rally support for China-Russia ties, stoke patriotic fervor or make money — and sometimes all three at once.

Persons: Shadé Organizations: stoke Locations: Australian, China, Russia

☆ Chinese Woman Jailed for Reporting on Covid Set to be Freed
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-13 | by ( Vivian Wang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

But in a sign of how eager the Chinese government remains to suppress public discussion of the outbreak, it was unclear on Monday evening whether Ms. Zhang, 40, had actually been set free. The lawyer who represented Ms. Zhang during her trial, Zhang Keke (the two are not related), said he could not reach her mother all day. The group, which gave Ms. Zhang a press freedom award in 2021, noted that journalists released from imprisonment in China are often kept under surveillance. Ms. Zhang was an early symbol of the mistrust that many Chinese harbored toward the government’s handling of the outset of the pandemic, and the hunger they had for unfiltered information. A former lawyer from Shanghai, she traveled in early 2020 to Wuhan, the city where the virus was first detected, as a self-styled citizen journalist.

Persons: Zhang Zhan, Zhang, Zhang Keke Locations: China, Shanghai, Wuhan

☆ Xi Meets Blinken With Tough Issues on the Agenda
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-26 | by ( Ana Swanson | Vivian Wang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Both China and the United States have said they were hoping for progress on a few smaller, pragmatic fronts, including improving communications between their militaries and easing travel between the countries. But they remain at a standstill on fundamental strategic issues, including trade policies and territorial conflicts in the South China Sea and over Taiwan. And with other disputes looming, both sides acknowledged the danger of the relationship sliding into further conflict. The Biden administration is deeply concerned that cheap Chinese exports are threatening U.S. jobs, and is worried about China’s support of Russia in the Ukrainian war. And China has accused the United States of working to encircle Chinese interests in the Pacific.

Persons: Antony J, Blinken, Xi Jinping, Biden Locations: Beijing, East Asia, East, Ukraine, China, United States, South, Taiwan, Russia, Pacific

☆ Blinken Goes to China With Potential Trouble on Horizon
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-24 | by ( Vivian Wang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken will arrive in China on Wednesday to try to preserve the recent and delicate stabilization of ties between the United States and China, as tensions over trade, territorial disputes and national security threaten to derail relations again. Even as Mr. Blinken’s plane approached Shanghai, the challenges ahead were apparent. The political season in the United States also looms as a complication. With the presidential election nearing, Democrats and Republicans are vying to appear tougher on China. And if former President Donald Trump is re-elected, he could reverse Beijing’s and Washington’s efforts to steady the relationship.

Persons: Antony J, Blinken, Blinken’s, Biden, Donald Trump Organizations: U.S . Senate, Republicans, State Department Locations: China, United States, Shanghai, Taiwan, Beijing, Russia, South China

☆ Why Are China’s Nationalists Attacking the Country’s Heroes?
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-26 | by ( Joy Dong | Vivian Wang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

To get the economy back on track, China is trying to champion its domestic companies and reassure entrepreneurs that it’s ready for business. Its efforts are running into a problem: an online army of Chinese nationalists who have taken it upon themselves to punish perceived insults to the country — including from some of China’s leading business figures. When fellow tycoons defended him, they were attacked as well, by users whose profiles featured photos of the Chinese flag. As the fervor spread, social media users also hounded Huawei, the crown jewel of China’s tech industry, accusing it of secretly admiring Japan. Others accused a prestigious university of being too cozy with the United States, and demanded the works of a Nobel-winning Chinese author be removed from circulation for purportedly smearing national heroes.

Persons: unpatriotic, tycoons Organizations: Huawei Locations: China, United States, Japan

☆ China Scraps Premier’s Annual News Conference in Surprise Move
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-04 | by ( Vivian Wang | Chris Buckley | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

China’s premier will no longer hold a news conference after the country’s annual legislative meeting, Beijing announced on Monday, ending a three-decades-long practice that had been an exceedingly rare opportunity for journalists to interact with top Chinese leaders. It also reinforced how China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, has consolidated power, relegating all other officials, including the premier — the country’s No. 2, who oversees government ministries — to much less visible roles. China’s current premier, Li Qiang, was widely considered to have been elevated to the role last year because of his loyalty to Mr. Xi. “Barring any special circumstances, there will not be a premier’s news conference in the next few years after this year’s legislative session either,” Lou Qinjian, a spokesman for the legislature, said at a news briefing about this year’s session.

Persons: Xi Jinping, Li Qiang, Mr, Xi, ” Lou Qinjian Locations: Beijing

☆ Murder and Magic Realism: A Rising Literary Star Mines China’s Rust Belt
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-01 | by ( Vivian Wang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

For a long time during Shuang Xuetao’s early teenage years, he wondered what hidden disaster had befallen his family. His parents, proud workers at a tractor factory in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang, stopped going to work, and the family moved into an empty factory storage room to save money on rent. But they rarely talked about what had happened, and Mr. Shuang worried that some special shame had struck his family alone. The region had been China’s industrial heartland, but suddenly millions of laborers were left unemployed. Even today, the region, sometimes called China’s Rust Belt, has not fully recovered.

Persons: Shuang Xuetao’s Locations: Shenyang, China

☆ ‘Shawshank’ in China, as You’ve Never Seen It Before
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-16 | by ( Vivian Wang | Claire Fu | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

When a stage production of “The Shawshank Redemption” opened recently in China, it was cast entirely with Western actors speaking fluent Mandarin Chinese. But that may have been the least surprising part of the show. Chinese audiences’ interest in Hollywood films is fading, with moviegoers turning to homegrown productions. China’s authoritarian government has stoked nationalism and cast Western influence as a political pollutant. Censorship of the arts has tightened.

Persons: ”, Stephen King, — Locations: China

☆ Welcome to ‘Dalifornia,’ an Oasis for China’s Drifters and Dreamers
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-04 | by ( Gilles Sabrié | Vivian Wang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

To find the dance circle in the bed-and-breakfast’s courtyard, drive north from the bedsheet factory converted into a crafts market, toward the vegan canteen urging diners to “walk barefoot in the soil and bathe in the sunshine.” If you see the unmanned craft beer bar where customers pay on the honor system, you’ve gone too far. Welcome to the Chinese mountain city of Dali, also sometimes known as Dalifornia, an oasis for China’s disaffected, drifting or just plain curious. The city’s nickname is a homage to California, and the easy-living, tree-hugging, sun-soaked stereotypes it evokes. It is also a nod to the influx of tech employees who have flocked there since the rise of remote work during the pandemic, to code amid the picturesque surroundings, nestled between snow-capped, 10,000-foot peaks in southwest China, on the shores of glistening Erhai Lake.

Persons: you’ve Locations: Dali, California, China, glistening

What It Took Young People in China to Get Their Jobs Not long ago, China’s economy was the envy of the world. We spoke to five young Chinese about what it took to find their jobs amid such uncertainty. Now, those boom years are fading, as are many young people’s hopes — with unpredictable consequences for China and the world. Ethan Yi, Class of 2022Qilai Shen for The New York TimesLooking back, Ethan Yi thinks he had been a little entitled, or at least naive. “I think it’s not good for young people to be too comfortable,” she said.

Persons: ”, hesitating, —, people’s, Nadia Yang, Fiona Qin, Qilai Shen, Ethan Yi, Yi, “, Phoebe Liu, Gilles Sabrié, Liu, ” Tsuki Jin, The New York Times Tsuki Jin, Jin, Ms Organizations: The New York Times Locations: China, Beijing, Shanghai

A British businessman who disappeared from public view in China in 2018 was sentenced to five years in prison in 2022, China’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday, in its first public acknowledgment of the case. The businessman, Ian J. Stones, had lived in China since the 1970s, working for companies like General Motors and Pfizer. For years after he vanished, there was no public information about his whereabouts, though some in the business community privately discussed his secret detention. A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry said that Mr. Stones had been convicted in 2022 of “buying and unlawfully supplying intelligence for an organization or individual outside China.” Mr. Stones’s appeal of the verdict was rejected in September 2023, said the spokesman, Wang Wenbin. Mr. Wang was responding to reporters’ questions at a regularly scheduled news conference, after The Wall Street Journal reported Mr. Stones’s case on Thursday.

Persons: Ian J, Stones, Mr, Wang Wenbin, Wang Organizations: General Motors, Pfizer, Foreign Ministry, Street Locations: British, China

☆ Building Fire in China Kills at Least 39, With Others Trapped
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-24 | by ( Vivian Wang | More About Vivian Wang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

A fire in a commercial building in southeastern China killed at least 39 people on Wednesday, as emergency workers raced to rescue people still trapped inside. The fire broke out around 3:30 p.m. local time in Xinyu, a city in Jiangxi Province, in the basement of a building that housed an internet cafe on the ground floor and an educational center upstairs, according to Chinese state media and a local government announcement. A video posted on social media by the Communist Party-affiliated outlet Beijing News showed thick black smoke billowing out of windows. Other videos posted by social media users on Wednesday, of what appeared to be the same building, showed people jumping from upper floors to a mattress on the ground outside, and a boy climbing down a ladder, wearing a backpack.

Organizations: Communist Party -, Beijing Locations: China, Xinyu, Jiangxi Province

☆ China Appears to Backpedal From Video Game Crackdown
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-23 | by ( Vivian Wang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Chinese regulators on Tuesday appeared to backpedal from a plan to reduce how much money people spend on online video games, after the proposal had tanked video gaming companies’ stocks and raised doubts about the government’s commitment to reviving China’s slowing economy. The draft rules disappeared from the website of the National Press and Publication Administration, the agency overseeing the proposal, after previously being posted there for public comment. The agency, which issues licenses to game publishers and regulates the industry, did not issue any notice of retraction. An employee who answered the phone said she was not clear on the circumstances surrounding the move. Even absent confirmation that the proposal had been killed, the stock prices of China’s two largest video game companies jumped on Tuesday, with Tencent rising 3.7 percent and Netease rising 6 percent, more than the overall market.

Organizations: National Press, Administration

☆ Can U.S.-China Student Exchanges Survive Geopolitics?
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-28 | by ( Vivian Wang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On a cool Saturday morning, in a hotel basement in Beijing, throngs of young Chinese gathered to do what millions had done before them: dream of an American education. At a college fair organized by the United States Embassy, the students and their parents hovered over rows of booths advertising American universities. Did America still want Chinese students? And were Chinese students sure they wanted to go to America? He had read the frequent headlines about gun violence, anti-Asian discrimination and, of course, tensions between the United States and China, at one of their highest levels in decades.

Persons: ”, Zhuang Tao Organizations: United States Embassy Locations: Beijing, America, United States, Australia, Britain, China

☆ W.H.O. Asks China for Details on Surge of Respiratory Illness in Children
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-23 | by ( Vivian Wang | Siyi Zhao | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The World Health Organization has formally requested that China share detailed information about a recent increase in respiratory illnesses, citing unconfirmed media reports of undiagnosed pneumonia in children. China has been reporting a jump in respiratory illnesses for months. Chinese media reports have described long lines at pediatric hospitals, and doctors have said that this year’s wave appeared to be more severe than those of previous years. But some news and social media reports have described crowds of children at hospitals with pneumonia, without specifying the exact cause of illness. requested more information from China.

Organizations: World Health Organization Locations: China

☆ W.H.O. Says China Has Shared Data Indicating No Novel Pathogen
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-23 | by ( Vivian Wang | More About Vivian Wang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The World Health Organization said that China had shared data about a recent surge in respiratory illnesses in children, one day after the agency said it was seeking information about the possibility of undiagnosed pneumonia cases there. The Chinese data indicated “no detection of any unusual or novel pathogens,” according to a W.H.O. statement on Thursday. The data, which included laboratory results from infected children, indicated that the rise in cases was a result of known viruses and bacteria, such as influenza and mycoplasma pneumoniae, a bacterium that causes usually mild illness. Hospital admissions of children had increased since May, as had outpatient visits, but hospitals were able to handle the increase, China told the global health agency.

Organizations: World Health Organization Locations: China

Meeting with President Biden for the first time in a year, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, reiterated his determination to unify with Taiwan, but stopped short of mentioning the potential use of force. He denounced what he called futile American efforts at containing China, but also acknowledged that U.S. tech restrictions had taken a toll. And he broadcast that China had global ambitions for its influence — while also trying to reassure the world that those ambitions did not have to lead to conflict with the United States. Mr. Xi wants to convince Washington, and the world, that he is willing to engage with the United States, in part to lure back foreign investment to bolster China’s ailing economy. But he also wants to demonstrate to the Chinese people that he strongly defended Beijing’s interests, and burnished its image as a world power on a par with the United States, not a secondary one making concessions.

Persons: Biden, Xi Jinping, Xi Locations: Taiwan, China, United States, San Francisco, Washington

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