Violence against women is China’s problem too

The China Letter: June 24, 2022

The public mistreatment of women by men, mounting evidence of election interference in Canada, the U.S. banning imports from Xinjiang, proof that China was snooping on TikTok and the ongoing devastation of lockdowns in Shanghai. Share this newsletter to let other people know which political, social and economic trends are worth watching.

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The scandalous scene

BBC News (UK) @BBCNews

Tangshan and Xuzhou: Fury and questions over China's treatment of women

bbc.inTangshan and Xuzhou: Fury and questions over China’s treatment of womenTwo prominent cases of abuse have ignited a debate about misogyny among the country’s young women.

A brutal attack on four women in a restaurant in Tangshan city by a group of men resulted in nine arrests, but the outrage reverberated further because the assault was captured on closed-circuit TV. In tandem with other recent gender-based attacks, more questions are being asked about a growing blind spot.

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The election meddlers

CTV News @CTVNews

China may have tried to discourage Canadians from voting Conservative: federal unit

ctvnews.caChina may have tried to discourage Canadians from voting Conservative: federal unitA federal research unit detected what might be a Chinese Communist Party information operation that aimed to discourage Canadians of Chinese heritage from voting for the Conservatives in the last federal election.

The former leader of the Conservative Party of Canada blamed China for the defeat of as many as nine candidates last fall amidst mounting evidence of election interference. Now, the suspicions have been backed up by a federal unit that tracks messaging trends, which noted patterns of disinformation.

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Some action on Xinjiang

CNN International @cnni

The United States banned all goods produced in China’s western Xinjiang region, following the enactment of a forced labor law signed by President Joe Biden last year.

cnn.itUS bans imports from China’s Xinjiang region over forced labor concerns | CNNThe United States banned all goods produced in China’s western Xinjiang region on Tuesday, following the enactment of a forced labor law signed by President Joe Biden last year.

The ban on imports from Xinjiang follows the enactment of a forced labour law designed to address the mistreatment of Uyghurs, which has increasingly been in the spotlight despite China denying all accusations of genocide. Typically, this American policy has found Chinese state media criticizing it as being the byproduct of those falsehoods.

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Trump view is vindicated

Senator Ted Cruz @SenTedCruz

Every single time TikTok gets asked questions about their ties to the CCP, they desperately dodge. This is why.

buzzfeednews.comLeaked Audio From 80 Internal TikTok Meetings Shows That US User Data Has Been Repeatedly Accessed From China“I feel like with these tools, there’s some backdoor to access user data in almost all of them,” said an external auditor hired to help TikTok close off Chinese access to sensitive information, like Americans’ birthdays and phone numbers.

The behaviour from ByteDance headquarters that inspired Donald Trump to ban TikTok—a move that was dropped by his successor in the White House—has been increasingly verified by reliable sources. After the report of how user data is accessed in China, the video app announced it moved all American traffic to Oracle servers ahead of a partnership.

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No happy ending here

Kadri 裘凯琳 @kadrikarolin

Photos of Shanghai residents ‘secretly dining in’ are making rounds on social media. Jurassic Park vibes.

The lockdown nightmare continues in Shanghai as Beijing continues to enforce a zero-COVID policy that’s left businesses hanging as they banked on the confinement period being over by now. What’s happened in China’s most populous city provides a grim view of a future of being ruled by fear and insecurity.