Wednesday, 8 March 2023

FCCC: Authorities Used COVID Measures to “Strangle” Foreign Correspondents’ Coverage of China

The Foreign Correspondent Club of China’s 2022 media freedoms report, an annual assessment of the country’s reporting climate over the previous year, found that COVID prevention measures had “strangled” already diminished foreign news bureaus’ coverage of China. 100% of respondents to the FCCC’s survey said that “China did not meet international standards for press freedoms and reporting last year.” The FCCC’s report emphasized the state’s deployment of COVID prevention mechanisms as journalism prevention measures:

  • 63% of respondents experienced some kind of reporting obstruction nominally attributed to Covid-prevention measures, though those measures were not applied to ordinary Chinese citizens.
  • 46% were told to leave a place or denied access for health and safety reasons when they presented no health risk by China’s own standards.
  • 47% said they were unable to travel at some point because of issues with their healthcode, a government-run system which controlled people’s movements based on supposed infection risk.
  • 21% said they and/or their sources were put under lockdown, preventing reporting, at least once.
  • 41.5% said they were forced to cancel four reporting trips or more due to Covid.

“We went to the border town of Ruili. Entering the town was made very difficult for foreigners through the excuse of ‘Covid prevention,’ even if there were no infections at the time and Chinese nationals could enter easily.” – Reporter with a European outlet

“My compound told me that I had to report to them every time I returned to Beijing and they would decide case-by-case where and for how long I’d have to quarantine. I asked why I had to do that if I only visited areas with no cases or that were classified as low risk, and they said that different policies applied so I had to go to them each time.” – Reporter with a U.K. outlet [Source]

The seeming use of health codes to prevent journalists from moving freely has strong parallels to other abuses such as the plight of Chinese bank depositors who found their health codes turned red upon their arrival in Zhengzhou to protest frozen deposits. Journalists also faced low-tech repression including incessant tailing by police, harassment of sources, online mobs, and even physical violence. BBC reporter Edward Lawrence was beaten and arrested by police while covering anti-COVID protests in Shanghai last November. Sjoerd den Daas, a correspondent for Dutch outlet NOS, posted a Dutch-language Twitter thread detailing the police harassment he faces in the course of an “average workday”:

First, den Daas is selected for a “routine check” while on the train to report a story:

Upon arrival at his destination, den Daas is tailed by two cars. One driver claims to be picking up a passenger, but never does so, and then follows den Daas for miles: 

In a shopping center, a man follows den Daas into and then out of an elevator, repeatedly, and refuses to identify which government agency he works for:

Female journalists of Asian descent are at particular risk of coordinated online harassment campaigns. A 2022 study by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute found that Twitter bots, likely operated by a pro-Party network, were maliciously targeting female Asian journalists with tailored abusive messages: 

Other parts of the campaign are far more sophisticated and tailored. A number of women of Asian descent are being targeted by a widespread, coordinated, intimidating and malicious campaign that has been crafted to be highly personal, abusive and threatening. Content has been tailored to their individual circumstances, covering their work and personal lives. This would have required extensive surveillance of targeted individuals in order to tailor these tweets and their messaging.

These women are accused of being traitors and liars, betraying their ‘motherland’ and slandering their home country (even though many of them were born overseas and have never held Chinese citizenship). These accounts attempt to attack their physical appearance, question their credibility and the quality of their work, often in response to specific content they’ve written or produced. These parts of the campaign are characterised by high levels of personal abuse including sexist, misogynistic and racist attacks that include messages such as ‘traitors don’t die well’ and ‘traitors often come to a bad end’.

[…] New York Times reporter Muyi Xiao and Washington-DC-based video journalist Xinyan Yuare currently the targets of some of the most malicious parts of this campaign. Many of the Twitter accounts targeting them are linked to the same operators targeting Fan and other CCP-linked information operations (that have targeted, for example, Guo Wengui and other Chinese dissidents). Earlier this week, at least 112 different accounts posted more than 500 tweets targeting Xiao within 24 hours. Of these accounts, 54 were created on 15 April alone. Since we collected this data, it appears that Twitter has taken down some of the accounts, but not all. [Source]

Chinese journalists working for foreign and domestic bureaus are at greatest risk of harassment and detention. Bloomberg news assistant Haze Fan, a Chinese national, was held for over a year on murky national security charges until her release on bail in January 2022. In February of this year, state news agency Xinhua announced the continuation of a crackdown on unregistered journalists and outlets. All journalists must carry a “press card” issued by the National Press and Publication Administration. This year, the NPPA’s guidelines for the media accreditation review process stressed loyalty to Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. At the Canadian outlet The Globe and Mail, James Griffiths highlighted the dangers faced by Chinese journalists employed by both domestic and foreign media: 

For Chinese employees of foreign media, the pressure can often become unbearable. Already strictly limited to “auxiliary” work such as translation or driving, they are the first to be harassed over sensitive stories and can be subjected to racial and often gendered harassment by pro-government trolls.

Chinese employees lack the relative protection that a foreign passport provides, and many who previously worked as news assistants for foreign bureaus have left the country or quit their jobs in recent years. The risks they face are extreme: China is the No. 1 jailer of journalists in the world, with more than 120 Chinese journalists currently detained, according to Reporters Without Borders.

“State harassment of Chinese colleagues and Chinese sources contacted by foreign outlets has increased dramatically,” the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China said. “This portends badly for coverage, where even the few journalists who are given credentials to live and work in China are unable to safely work with and talk to Chinese citizens.” [Source]

Chinese state media attacked the FCCC’s report as a “smear” intended to discredit China. A China Daily article reposted by Party-run outlet People’s Daily called the FCCC’s claims about COVID controls’ impact on journalists “risible,” ignoring the allegation of targeted double standards by adding: “the privilege to travel ‘freely’ as they misunderstand it would pose a risk to everybody, themselves included.” Many state-media reports alleged that foreign journalists were a tool of “Western authorities’ interference” in Chinese affairs. In an interview with Global Times, a prominent nationalist international relations commentator said the report was a reflection of the West’s “arrogant attitude”:

Some journalists in the Western media do not have a balanced and objective view of China. On the contrary, they take a position in line with Western ideology, Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Friday.

The media can be a factor in Western authorities’ interference in China’s internal affairs. “I believe that in other countries, such behavior is unlikely to be accepted,” Li said.

Their statements have proved that they have not shaken off their “arrogant attitude” of pointing fingers at China’s internal affairs even at the cost of distorting the facts, Li noted. [Source]

The FCCC’s report was released just days before the “Two Sessions,” the roughly coterminous gatherings of the legislative National People’s Congress (NPC) and the advisory Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in Beijing. The limited on-the-ground foreign press coverage of the “Two Sessions” has underscored China’s challenging reporting environment. People’s Daily reported that over 1,000 journalists from Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and “foreign countries” had registered to cover the Two Sessions, a dramatic drop from the over 3,000 foreign journalists that attended the Two Sessions in 2017, according to state-media outlet CGTN Africa. At The Financial Times, Thomas Hale reported on the difficulties faced by reporters covering the Two Sessions, both regionally and in Beijing, as they were asked to comply with the final vestiges of a zero-COVID policy that the rest of the country had already abandoned: 

The pre-NPC quarantine requirement was also imposed at the regional versions of the Congress — a contrast to the complete abandonment of restrictions elsewhere, from airports to offices. So in mid-January, by which point most people I knew had already recovered from the virus, I completed my fourth and shortest quarantine, for 24 hours, at a hotel in Shanghai. It also required three PCR tests taken over three consecutive days, and the completion of a table monitoring your body temperature each morning and afternoon for seven days.

The problem was that PCR testing booths on the street corners had by then mostly been disassembled, along with much of the data (though official estimates claimed there had already been hundreds of millions of infections). I found one hidden away off Nanjing Road. It was around 2pm. “Am I the first person here today?” I asked the hazmat-suited workers. “No,” they replied. “You’re the third”. The test, no longer free, cost Rmb16 ($2.30). 

For my next two tests, after scouring the streets on my bike, I came across a booth on Wulumuqi Road, the site of protests against the zero-Covid regime a week before it was abandoned. The worker added me on WeChat to collect my details. “The destination’s the UK?” she asked, assuming I was taking the test for international travel. It’s the Two Sessions, I said. It’s free for the Two Sessions, she explained, with one of those crying-with-laughter emojis, because I’d already paid.

We were taken by bus to a hotel on Saturday afternoon, ahead of a Sunday afternoon press conference. The process of checking in was like a sketch scripted to capture what zero-Covid was actually like. I was supposed to check in on a special app that linked to my test results, but it wouldn’t recognise my passport number. Someone suggested I instead take an antigen test, which we had to do anyway the next morning. [Source]

Bloomberg News reported on the restrictions faced by foreign journalists in covering China’s annual legislative meetings:

On Sunday, reporters lucky enough to get the very limited spots for the opening ceremony had to stay at a hotel the night before to gain access to the Great Hall of the People — although quarantine rules were enforced less rigorously than was before.

A significant number of seats in the section reserved for the press was taken up by reporters from developing countries mainly in Africa and Asia, some of whom were flown to China to partake in journalism training arranged by the Chinese government, which included attending the two sessions. Journalists were forbidden to take in items including second phones, selfie-sticks and power banks. [Source]

In an interview with GQ, the famous martial artist and actor Donnie Yen, a CPPCC delegate, accused foreign media of focusing on negative news out of China. Referring to aspects of Chinese modernization such as transportation (CNN), architecture (BBC), and app-fueled lifestyle convenience (New York Times), Yen claimed, “The BBC, CNN, they never talk about that. They never mention the true side of it. But I’m there, you know?” (Yen is set to present at the Oscars this Sunday but his comments elicited a firestorm of criticism and a petition to have him removed as a host.) The Substack blog China Charts has found that U.S., U.K., Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand English-language media are equally negative in their coverage of the Chinese and American economies. Nevertheless, it is sometimes difficult for foreign media to “tell China’s story well” because NPC and CPPCC delegates refuse to answer reporters’ questions: 



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2023/03/fccc-authorities-used-covid-measures-to-strangle-foreign-correspondents-coverage-of-china/
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Thursday, 2 March 2023

Photo: People waiting for bus at night (Shenzhen), by QuantFoto

Streaks of yellow, orange, red, and blue light inform this stylized photo of a bus speeding by a bus stop at night in Shenzhen, as two passengers wait on benches.
Streaks of yellow, orange, red, and blue light inform this stylized photo of a bus speeding by a bus stop at night in Shenzhen, as two passengers wait on benches.

People waiting for bus at night (Shenzhen), by QuantFoto (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2023/03/photo-people-waiting-for-bus-at-night-shenzhen-by-quantfoto/
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Forbes – Workers In China Have Their Own Version Of Quiet Quitting And Acting Your Wage: ‘Huminerals’ Are Extracted, Exploited And Disposed Of



source https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2023/02/23/china-workers-have-their-version-of-quiet-quitting-and-acting-your-wage-huminerals-are-extracted-exploited-and-disposed-of/?sh=14feeced7fa0#new_tab
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Calling for Peace in Ukraine, China Courts Belarus, Russia

Days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Xi Jinping declared a “no-limits” partnership with Vladimir Putin. At the one-year anniversary of the invasion, Xi’s diplomatic and military engagements display resolute support for the Russian war, despite his recent gestures to broker peace.

This week, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko visited Beijing on a three-day trip, in a move that many in the West view as a new sign of China’s support for Russia. Austin Ramzy and Ann M. Simmons from The Wall Street Journal reported on Lukashenko’s visit to Beijing and his close cooperation with Xi: 

Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Moscow’s closest ally, sought to cement the partnership between their two nations as Minsk seeks more help for its sanctions-hit economy while endorsing Beijing’s efforts to cast itself as a peacemaker in the Ukraine war.

[…] On Wednesday, while sitting down for talks with Mr. Xi, Mr. Lukashenko praised Beijing’s efforts on Ukraine and stated his commitment to supporting China’s proposal on international security, which he has earlier called a “new and original initiative that will have far-reaching effects in the world.”

[…] Mr. Lukashenko told Mr. Xi that Belarus was interested in deepening cooperation with China in the sphere of technological development. He proposed the creation of joint ventures in the sphere of machine tools, electric transport and the production of parts for agricultural machinery in both countries. [Source]

Many analysts highlighted the curious timing of the visit. “The only way that Xi would bother to meet with [Lukashenko] right now would be because something larger is at stake for Beijing and it likely has to do with the war in Ukraine,” said Katsiaryna Shmatsina, an expert on Belarusian politics at Virginia Tech university. As Joe Webster wrote in his China-Russia Report on Wednesday, “Beijing’s economic support for Belarus could implicitly subsidize the war”:

Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko’s impromptu visit to Beijing and meetings with General Secretary Xi, other officials, and Chinese corporations may be another indicator that Beijing is increasingly willing to back Putin more overtly, albeit indirectly, by extending assistance to Minsk.

While Lukashenko appears unlikely to enter the conflict as a combatant, there is a significant risk that Beijing could use Minsk as a cutout for economic and potentially even military assistance for Moscow. Minsk is clearly supporting the war (it allowed Russian troops to invade Ukraine from its territory) and is under Western sanctions – but it is not a combatant. The PRC may be trying to exploit Belarus’ nominally neutral status, find fissures in sanctions, and bolster Putin economically or even militarily. [Source]

There have been growing signs of military cooperation between the three countries. In a joint statement released last year, Lukashenko and Xi pledged to “further expand practical cooperation in every sphere between the two militaries,” and during this week’s visit they agreed to “deepen cooperation” on military personnel training and fighting terrorism. Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported that customs records showed “Chinese state-owned defense companies shipping navigation equipment, jamming technology, and jet-fighter parts to sanctioned Russian government-owned defense companies.” Last week, Der Spiegel obtained information ostensibly revealing that the Chinese and Russian militaries have been negotiating the transfer of strike drones and aircraft parts:

According to that information, the Russian military is engaged in negotiations with Chinese drone manufacturer Xi’an Bingo Intelligent Aviation Technology over the mass production of kamikaze drones for Russia. The revelations create a new urgency in the debate over possible Chinese military support for Russia.

Bingo has reportedly agreed to manufacture and test 100 ZT-180 prototype drones before delivering them to the Russian Defense Ministry by April 2023. Military experts believe the ZT-180 is capable of carrying a 35- to 50 kilogram warhead.

[…] In a further step, Bingo reportedly plans to deliver components and know-how to Russia so that the country can produce around 100 drones a month on its own.

China apparently already had plans last year to provide the Russian military with much more substantial support than previously known. According to information obtained by DER SPIEGEL, companies under the control of China’s People’s Liberation Army had planned to deliver replacement parts for Russia’s SU-27 fighter jets and other models.

DER SPIEGEL has learned in its reporting that plans had apparently already been made to falsify shipping documents to make the parts for military aircraft appear to be replacement parts for civilian aviation. [Source]

Independent confirmation of this information remains elusive. When reached for comment this week, the Chinese company said: “Bingo Intelligent has no commercial contact with Russia.” Several days before the Der Spiegel article emerged, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that China was “strongly considering providing lethal assistance to Russia,” but the U.S. government has not yet publicly provided any specific evidence. Dennis Wilder, a former CIA Deputy Assistant Director for East Asia and the Pacific, suggested on China Talk that Chinese military assistance to Russia would be difficult to track: “If I’m the Chinese and I think about artillery shells, here’s what I think: ‘If I don’t put my factory markings on the shells, and I ship them on some of these rail cars that go constantly between China and Russia, how are the Americans going to figure this out? How are they going to know that these are my shells?’”

What is clear, however, is China’s recent diplomatic outreach to autocrats supportive of Russia. Lukashenko’s visit comes just two weeks after Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi spent three days in Beijing at Xi’s invitation, marking the first visit to China by an Iranian president in 20 years. (Iran has provided Russia with drones and missiles.) Last week, China’s top diplomat Wang Yi met Putin in Moscow for a high-profile visit, the first by a Chinese official in his role since Russia’s invasion. “There’s been a clear push by Beijing, Moscow, Minsk and Tehran to demonstrate a narrative that says ‘We have other options, and we’ll put them on proud display — you can sanction us all you want, and it doesn’t matter,’” said Raffaello Pantucci, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies in London.

The Chinese government has attempted to project an interest in ending the war. On the anniversary of the Russian invasion last week, China released a 12-point position paper that “offers [a] path to peace.” The paper, which elaborated on the CCP’s standard talking points about the “Ukraine crisis,” was widely viewed as being heavily biased towards Russia. Nonetheless, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed a desire to discuss the proposal in a meeting with Xi, who has yet to meet—or even hold a phone call—with Zelensky, despite the Ukrainian government’s repeated invitations. Xi’s reticence has undermined efforts to portray himself as a peacemaker, especially as he prepares to meet Putin in Moscow this spring. As Giacomo Bruni and Ilaria Carrozza argued in The Diplomat, China’s position paper was largely meant to deflect criticism rather than present concrete steps to end the conflict:  

In the end, the position paper predictably offers nothing new in terms of its rhetoric. China continues to walk the fine line between its support for Russia and its attempts at not deteriorating its already fraught relations with Western countries; it repeats ad nauseam the same points that Beijing always expresses internationally, including respect for state sovereignty and international law; and most importantly it does not advance any concrete or practical solution to the conflict. The paper’s main objective rather seems to appease the West and keep at bay some of the criticism for China’s inaction and continued support for Putin. [Source]

If anything, Xi appears content to let the war continue. Phelim Kine wrote in Politico’s latest China Watcher newsletter that “China may be winning the war,” and “an end to hostilities would risk the strategic and economic windfall that Beijing has reaped from Russia’s war on Ukraine over the past 12 months.” He added, “[The Sino-Russian] relationship is relegating Russia to the status of a Chinese client state which could pay Beijing long term geostrategic dividends.” On the Sinica podcast, Evan Feigenbaum observed: “If China were interested in showcasing its disapproval or of projecting opprobrium onto Russia’s actions, it would not be basically looking for every conceivable seam in here to basically have its cake and eat it.” Patricia M. Kim expounded upon this symbiotic relationship this week in Foreign Affairs, noting that while China and Russia cannot be split, their coordination has limits:

Beijing’s resolve to maintain ties with Moscow is partly practical. Chinese leaders want to keep their nuclear-armed neighbor and former rival on their side as they look ahead to intense, long-term competition with the United States. But China’s alignment with Russia is not only a matter of realpolitik. Beijing sees Moscow as its most important partner in the wider project of altering a global order that it perceives as skewed unfairly toward the West. In this order, according to the Chinese and Russian line, the United States and its allies set the rules to their advantage, defining what it means to be a democracy and to respect human rights while retaining the power to isolate and punish actors for failing to uphold those standards. Beijing and Moscow purport to seek a “fairer,” multipolar order that better takes into account the views and interests of developing countries.

[…] But Beijing’s and Moscow’s conflicting priorities and the latter’s generally dismal prospects limit the pair’s ability to revise the existing global order in a truly coordinated and radical way. Western leaders should nevertheless accept that efforts to push Beijing to cut its ties with Moscow are likely to fail. In the near term, the United States and its allies should focus instead on preventing the partnership from veering down a more destructive path by taking advantage of Beijing’s strong interest in the preservation of global stability. More broadly, Washington and its allies should recognize that China and Russia are channeling real disaffection with the existing international order in many parts of the world—and should get to work bridging the gap between the West and the rest. [Source]

Outside of Zhongnanhai, not all Chinese views are supportive of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Some Chinese writers and media personalities have been supportive of Ukraine and even critical of Beijing’s relationship with Moscow, as Irene Zhang noted this week. “On the anniversary of the Russia-Ukraine war, we see that every single step Russia has taken so far lands on a painful point for China,” wrote one nationalist blogger on WeChat. In the British Journal of Chinese Studies, and later in an interview with The China Project, Kristy Amber Bryant argued against a monolithic “Chinese Perspective” on Ukraine:

There are a number of contributing factors that explain why it is problematic to stereotype China’s position as Russia’s ally and, for the most part, these are overlooked in favour of maintaining the dangerous East versus West, authoritarianism versus democracy binary. This essay raises concern with the trend of essentialist takes on particularly sensitive issues and contexts, like the war in Ukraine, and argues for more reflexivity, meticulous scrutiny of sources, and nuanced analysis so as to account for greater nuance in academic interpretations and beyond. Highlighting the issue of ununified and variable official statements and mainstream media and the rising popularity of alternative sources, particularly social media influencers, this piece argues for more consideration regarding the diversity of voices within China. [Source]



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2023/03/calling-for-peace-in-ukraine-china-courts-belarus-russia/
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Wednesday, 1 March 2023

Photo: Untitled (Galaxy Park, Tianjin), by Matthew Stinson

Against the night sky, each floor of the glass highrise “Full Moon Tower” at Galaxy Park in Tianjin is illuminated in a different shade of the rainbow.
Against the night sky, each floor of the glass highrise “Full Moon Tower” at Galaxy Park in Tianjin is illuminated in a different shade of the rainbow.

Untitled (Galaxy Park, Tianjin), by Matthew Stinson (CC BY-NC 2.0)



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2023/03/photo-untitled-galaxy-park-tianjin-by-matthew-stinson/
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Word(s) of the Week: “White-haired Movement”

The “White-haired Movement” (白发运动, Baifa Yundong) refers to protests led by elderly and retired workers in Wuhan and Dalian in February 2023, and in Guangzhou in January 2023. The protesters were objecting to medical insurance reforms, proposed by cash-strapped local governments, that would transfer contributions to “personal health accounts” (used by individuals to pay for doctors’ visits and medications) to a state-controlled outpatient insurance fund. Given that the outpatient insurance fund features higher deductibles and lower coverage, many retirees feared that it would result in steep cuts to their medical benefits, despite attempts by dozens of cities to tout the benefits of the reforms. As one protester in Wuhan told the Financial Times, “This is robbery. […] The government wants to use my money to subsidise others without my permission.” 

An initial demonstration on February 8 in Wuhan was largely peaceful: the elderly and retired protesters shouted slogans, sang “The Internationale,” and promised that they would return a week later if Wuhan authorities did not address their concerns about the reforms. And as promised, on February 15—just weeks before the opening of the 14th National People’s Congress (NPC) legislative session in Beijing—thousands of older protesters filled Wuhan’s streets, gathering at Zhongshan Park and Wuhan Union Hospital. This time, the official response was less muted: a metro station near a protest site was shut down, shoving matches broke out between police and protesters, and some protesters who tried to escape by climbing barricades were pulled back by uniformed police officers. A second retiree-led protest on the same day in the northeastern port city of Dalian was likewise heavily policed. 

Reports of the protests in Wuhan and Dalian were heavily censored online. A China Digital Times analysis found that many related hashtags were banned on Weibo, and attempts to search for them yielded error messages such as “Based on relevant laws, regulations, and policies, this topic cannot be displayed” or “Sorry, no relevant results were found.” The banned hashtags included #Wuhan Medical Insurance (#武汉医保), #Wuhan Zhongshan Park (#武汉中山公园), #Wuhan Medical Insurance Reform (#武汉医保改革), #Wuhan Medical Insurance Reform Major Adjustment (#武汉医保改革重大调整), and #Is There a Compensation Plan for Shrinking Balances in Medical Insurance Personal Accounts? (#医保个人账户缩水能不能有补偿方案).

Despite strict censorship, netizens found ways to express support for this rare example of activism by senior citizens and retirees. The protests in Wuhan and Dalian were dubbed the “White-haired Movement” , a nod to the term “White-paper Movement” (白纸运动, Baizhi Yundong), which referred to the blank white sheets of A4 paper displayed during the spontaneous mass demonstrations that broke out in numerous Chinese cities during November and December 2022. Those earlier demonstrations, primarily led by young people, were touched off by a fire that killed at least ten residents of a locked-down building in Urumqi, Xinjiang. Initial demonstrations of mourning escalated into a broader protest movement in opposition to draconian COVID controls and ongoing political repression. Hundreds of young protesters were arrested, and many remain in detention as of March 2023. 

Whether the “White-haired Movement” can evolve into a longer-term movement remains to be seen, yet it is undeniable that China’s elderly population represents a large and powerful block with legitimate rights and concerns, and a growing willingness to defend those rights and concerns. As of 2020, China had two hundred million people aged 65 and above, accounting for 13.5 percent of the nation’s population. The United Nations projects that by 2050, there will be 366 million older Chinese adults, making up 26 percent of the population. It is only natural that this growing cohort, after a lifetime of working to build “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” would take a strong interest in government policies on retirement, medical benefits, later-life care, and other salient issues. Having been promised that the government would care for them in their old age, expectations are high. As one older protester in Wuhan told the New York Times, he resents being asked to shoulder the burden of cuts to his medical insurance: “The socialist country today was created by us, the older generation.”

One recent Weibo comment draws a connection between the burdens placed on the elderly in Wuhan during the three pandemic years, and their unusual willingness to fight back now: “Elderly people in Wuhan survived the first round of COVID. Then they survived three more years of interminable testing and pandemic measures. Then they survived several months of the peak COVID surge before, during, and after the Lunar New Year. And now they have turned from fighting the pandemic to protesting.”



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2023/03/words-of-the-week-white-haired-movement/
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Lithium Mining Crackdown Highlights Environmental Woes

A crackdown on rural Jiangxi’s lithium sector that might snarl global supply chains has cast a spotlight on the conflict between rural economic development and environmental protection. Earlier this week, investigation teams from a number of central government agencies—including the Ministry of Natural Resources, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, National Development and Reform Commission, and the Ministry of Public Security, according to reporting by Caixin—descended on Yichun City, Jiangxi to investigate lithium mining, putting a halt to private lepidolite extraction operations in the area. Lepidolite ore can be processed into lithium. Bloomberg News reported on the surprise shutdown of the lithium rich-region’s mining economy: 

Ore-processing operations in Yichun have been ordered to stop as investigators probe alleged violations at lithium mines, Yicai newspaper reported. That threatens somewhere between 8% and 13% of global supply, according to various analyst estimates, although it’s unclear for how long the immediate shutdowns will last.

[…] All lepidolite mining in Yichun aside from those by a state-owned company have been suspended, but refineries are still operational, Dennis Ip and Leo Ho, analysts at Daiwa Capital Markets, said. 

[…] Some companies had already been targeted for infringements, including incidents of pollution, over the past year. This is a much wider crackdown, and involves officials from central government departments including the Ministry of Natural Resources.

The Beijing officials will mainly look at violations at lithium mines and seek to guide the “healthy development” of the industry, according to the Yicai report. It will largely target those mining without permits or with expired licenses, it said. [Source]

The demand for lithium is driven by China’s electric car battery industry. Fujian-based battery manufacturer CATL is now worth more than General Motors and Ford combined. While China dominates lithium battery production, its domestic supplies of lithium are considered “low grade and high cost.” Nevertheless, soaring demand for lithium amidst increased demand for electric cars led to an increase in illegal mining in Jiangxi. Mining has left some local water sources polluted with thallium, a toxic metal. At Reuters, Siyi Liu, Ningqei Qin, and Dominique Patton reported that the rapid expansion of illegal mining in Jiangxi was causing environmental issues:

“Environmental issues and illegal mining are the prominent problems in Jiangxi, where around one third of domestic lithium resource supply comes from,” said Wu Wei, assistant professor at the China New Energy Policy Research Institute of Xiamen University.

[…] Jiangxi has large reserves of lepidolite, a lithium-containing mineral. But the relatively low grade of lithium in it requires heavy extraction, said Wu.

“The mining and processing also pollute water as a result of its byproducts like tantalum and thallium,” he said.

[…] Mining in Yichun has boomed in the last two years, growing from a couple of dozen ore selection plants to more than 200, said the analyst, adding that more inspections are likely. [Source]

State media outlet Global Times, relaying reporting from financial magazine Caijing, blamed the “chaos” of lepidolite extraction in Jiangxi on extra-legal mining by villagers looking to make a windfall: 

According to the report, certain village people in Yichun were obsessed with digging up lepidolite ore in local mining areas, mountains and woods to sell, as surging orders for NEVs in China in recent years have boosted demand and prices of lithium batteries and in turn, the raw materials of lithium.

[…] According to the Caijing report, some Yichun villagers could make up to 1,000 yuan a day by digging up lepidolite ore. In comparison, rural residents of Yichun earned less than 1,600 yuan per month per capita in 2021.

The disorderly extraction caused chaos, including environmental damage and exploitation without a license. Several truck accidents have happened in certain mining areas of Yichun recently, as the large-scale operation of transport vehicles by lithium companies has affected transportation, the yicai.com report said. [Source]

The expansion in illegal mining activity may also have been driven by a 2022 drought that left some Jiangxi farmers impoverished. One third of arable Chinese farmland is threatened by degradation, acidification, and salinization. The danger, Chinese meteorologists warn, is only getting worse. During a February press conference, a spokesperson for the China Meteorological Administration, a central government agency, said: “At present, global warming is accelerating… and under the impact of climate change, the climate system is becoming increasingly unstable,” and warned provincial governments to prepare for more droughts and flooding in the coming year.



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2023/03/lithium-mining-crackdown-highlights-environmental-woes/
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