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☆ China is going full 'Black Mirror,' showing off a robot dog that's mounted with a machine gun and can be deployed via drone
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( Cheryl Teh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A private military defense contractor in China is going full "Black Mirror" with its latest offering. The company posted a video on Weibo showing a machine-gun mounted robot dog. The video shows a large drone carrying a gun-mounted robot dog. In August, the company also trialed a robot dog that could carry a munitions launcher. At the country's Robot Expo in August, dozens of robot dogs were seen doing a group dance, with plenty of hopping and paw-shaking.

☆ Hu's dramatic China congress exit fuels speculation, official silence
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-24 | by ( Martin Quin Pollard | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

During the once-in-five-years congress, Xi solidified his grip on power by appointing a Standing Committee made up entirely of loyalists - and excluding the three most senior members of Hu's once-powerful Communist Youth League faction. State TV's Saturday night news broadcasts included images of Hu at the congress, before his exit. Chinese politics, always opaque, have become even more secretive under Xi's decade-long tenure. "Despite the plausibility of a mundane explanation of ill-health, the CCP's secretiveness vis-à-vis senior Chinese leaders and elite Chinese politics lends itself to many more salacious explanations," he said. On China's Twitter-like Weibo, a few social media users alluded to the incident by commenting on old posts featuring Hu.

Promoted despite facing difficulties in leading China's capital, Cai is much like another Xi ally elevated to the Standing Committee, Shanghai Party Secretary Li Qiang. Cai and Li on Sunday joined a long list of Shanghai and Beijing Party bosses that have been promoted to the Standing Committee. Cai was promoted in 2014 to general office deputy director at the Beijing-based National Security Commission, a body founded and chaired by Xi. In 2017, just weeks after the 19th Party Congress, Cai faced loud public criticism over the forced eviction of migrant workers on Beijing's outskirts. A decade later, during a Beijing Party committee meeting on cyberspace and ideology hosted by Cai, no mention was made of citizens using social media to hold officials accountable.

☆ China rushes to control new Covid cases across the country
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-11 | by ( Evelyn Cheng | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Workers in Shanghai's Changning district put up fencing on Oct. 7, 2022, around a neighborhood lockdown after reports of new Covid cases. BEIJING — New Covid cases are spiking across mainland China, prompting many local authorities to tighten controls on movement. About 4.8% of China's gross domestic product was negatively affected by Covid controls as of Monday, according to a model from Nomura. On Tuesday, many schools in the central Chinese city of Xi'an cancelled in-person classes for most students, according to a local news outlet. A hashtag about the sudden closures was one of the top-trending items on Weibo, China's Twitter-like social media platform.

☆ Security, red banners and COVID curbs: Beijing readies for 20th Congress
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-11 | by ( Eduardo Baptista | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

REUTERS/Thomas PeterBEIJING, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Beijing has stepped up security and COVID curbs and decorated the capital Beijing with red political banners as it gears up for a Communist Party congress where President Xi Jinping is poised to become China's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. The 20th party congress, which opens on Oct. 16, occurs every five years and brings together 2,300 party members, mostly behind closed doors, at the vast Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square. One hashtag about Beijing "pop-up windows" started on Oct. 5 and generated over 12 million views by Tuesday. A lockdown in Beijing during Congress would be an even larger dent on Xi and the Party's unwavering commitment to zero-COVID. Besides the COVID "pop-up windows", Beijing authorities recently introduced a series of measures to show their commitment to keeping the Congress virus-free, from reinforcing COVID monitoring teams at key airports and railway stations to increasing the frequency of COVID testing for office workers.

☆ Analysis: As Putin escalates Ukraine war, China stands awkwardly by him
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-22 | by ( Brenda Goh | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

China will instead dig in on its awkward stance of calling for dialogue and peaceful resolution while refusing to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine, they said. But China has been careful not to provide any direct material support that could trigger Western sanctions against it. "I don't see how different any new position will be ... China doesn't support the war, it doesn't support conflict, that's been very clear from the beginning," said Henry Wang Huiyao, founder of the Beijing-based think tank Center for China and Globalization. Russia says its actions in Ukraine are a "special operation" to degrade its neighbour's military capabilities and root out people it calls dangerous nationalists. Although China probably hoped for a short war, Putin's battlefield moves in Ukraine - seeking to counter recent defeats - are unlikely to concern Beijing or change the substantive nature of the countries' relationship, analysts said.

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