The battle of Silicon Valley
Chinese activists based in the U.S. found their account suspended after a virtual meeting on the Zoom platform to commemorate the Tiananmen Square massacre. The video chat company admitted they removed Humanitarian China’s access to comply with “local laws,” but reinstated the account following criticism.
Zoom users concerned about its policies include U.S.-based professors who use it to teach in China, even after the company promised to no longer allow Beijing to dictate who to censor. Concurrently, the discovery of a trove of messages linked to influencing via the People’s Republic resulted in Twitter purging more than 17,000 individual handles:
Twitter dismantled “state-linked” networks run by a “highly engaged core” of 23,750 accounts, boosted by 150,000 “amplifier” accounts. Topics ranged from criticizing protests in Hong Kong to highlighting protests in the U.S., along with propaganda related to COVID-19. (And yet, the Twitter platform is formally blocked in China.)
Heavy days in Hong Kong
“The people of Hong Kong want to see stability again, they want a safe environment where they can work and live,” said Carrie Lam in her latest defence of the new national security law, and believes that residents have nothing to worry about. Nonetheless, democracy activists want Boris Johnson to be more precise about the U.K. immigration overture.
The world’s most expensive shopping street, Russell Street in Causeway Bay, finds itself home to increasingly cheaper goods due to protests and the coronavirus. A mobile phone vendor in Hong Kong is paying just 6 per cent of the rent of the space’s previous tenant, Tissot, the pricey Swiss watchmaker.
Regardless, after a five-month shutdown, reopening is set for Hong Kong Disneyland.
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Heated in the Himalayas
The foreign ministers of China and India promised not to escalate the situation after the former tried to erect a structure in the latter’s territory. But that was after the deaths of at least 20 Indian troops—while reports say about 40 Chinese soldiers perished. Narendra Modi expressed pride in those who died defending the country.
Wave hello to old fears
China cancelled all flights to Beijing, shut shops and schools and raised its emergency warning to the second-highest level amid a new coronavirus outbreak that’s raised alarm around a world now ending lockdowns due to the pandemic. The source of this second wave remains a mystery, although suspicions are pointing to recently imported seafood.
The last words, for now
While the one-child policy existed in China from 1979 to 2015, couples have since been told it’s their patriotic duty to have two babies. But getting them together is complicated by the fact that the practice of aborting girls resulted in 34 million more men than women under 40. A potential solution being proposed would be the practice of polyandry:
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