China News - 14 May 2021
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International
Mosques disappear as China strives to ‘build a beautiful Xinjiang’. Reuters visited more than two dozen mosques across seven counties in southwest and central Xinjiang on a 12-day visit during Ramadan. Most of the mosques that Reuters visited had been partially or completely demolished. Reuters, 13 May
Xinjiang: no family planning policy targeting Uyghurs, Beijing says. AP, SCMP, 14 May
New UK anti-spying laws turn spotlight on academics ‘working for the enemy’. Foreign academics suspected of helping hostile states could have restrictions imposed on their movements and contacts under new government counter-espionage powers. Spreading fake news on behalf of a hostile state like Russia or China could also become a crime under government plans to overhaul the Official Secrets Act. The Telegraph, The Times, 14 May
Wuhan lab Covid escape ‘can’t be ruled out’, says group of leading scientists. In a letter to Science, researchers from Stanford, Harvard, MIT and Cambridge said there was not enough data to exclude the possibility. The Times, Technology Review, 14 May
Consign coal to the past, UK's climate tsar says. "Glasgow must be the COP that consigns coal to history," Alok Sharma will say in a speech on Friday. Britain currently generates 2% of its electricity from coal, down from 40% in 2012. Reuters, 14 May
China looks to one-up US with plans for face-to-face ASEAN talks in June. Meanwhile, Washington is scrambling to arrange a virtual meeting of foreign ministers in May. Nikkei, 14 May
US needs new legal tools to combat China threats, says trade chief Katherine Tai. SCMP, 14 May
Economy & tech
Burberry insists Chinese backlash over Xinjiang row has not hurt sales. Julie Brown, the finance chief, said the company continued to have “very good relations” with Chinese online marketplace Tencent. The Telegraph, 13 May
Alibaba reports quarterly operational loss after $3bn fine by Beijing officials. But revenues rose by 64%. The Times, 14 May
Xiaomi’s rare victory to remove itself from US blacklist could pave the way for other Chinese tech giants. SCMP, 14 May
Longer reads & opinion
China prepares to land first rover on Mars — and reveal fresh geological insights. Nature, 14 May
China pushes back against critics of its policies in Xinjiang. The Economist, 8 May
Why more young Chinese want to be civil servants. Geopolitical distrust is bleeding into work relations. The Economist, 14 May
China census reveals the true scale of the Northeast’s decline. The three northeastern provinces have seen their combined population decline by 11 million people, or roughly 10%, since the 2010 census. Andrew Batson’s blog, 13 May
UK’s biggest naval fleet in decades to flex muscle with eye on China and US. WSJ, 14 May