Torbjørn Færøvik's Blog, page 151

Activists tell US Congress of China’s far-reaching cultural erasure

 A campaign by China’s government to rewrite the cultural identity and history of the country’s minority ethnic groups and political dissidents is increasingly being waged on American shores, activists told a U.S. congressional hearing on Thursday. The Tibetan, Uyghur, Mongolian and Chinese activists said that while the United States once stood as a bastion of free speech and a redoubt of

China demolishes prominent Xinjiang building owned by Uyghur activist in US

A symbolically important building in Xinjiang’s capital that was instrumental in the emergence of Uyghur entrepreneurs and businesspeople in the 1990s has been demolished, Radio Free Asia has learned. Authorities destroyed the Rebiya Kadeer Trade Center in Urumqi on Nov. 29, said Zumret Dawut, a Uyghur internment camp survivor now in the United States, citing sources from inside China’s

Here’s what could get significantly more expensive under Trump’s tariff plan

Import taxes are set to spike under the incoming Trump administration, forcing Americans to pay more for everything from foreign-made sneakers and toys to food, according to new research. The items that are most vulnerable to price spikes from President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs are ones that currently have low tariffs and those that mostly come from China, the Peterson Institute for

‘No winners’: China’s Xi warns US against a trade war

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has warned the United States against restarting a trade war, saying there would be “no winners” even as he vowed to defend the country’s economic interests. Xi made the remarks on Tuesday during a meeting with the heads of several global financial institutions, including the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, a day after Chinese regulators announced an antitrust

South Korea’s ex-defense minister is formally arrested over martial law imposition

A former South Korean defense minister was formally arrested Wednesday (local time) over his alleged collusion with President Yoon Suk Yeol and others in imposing martial law last week, as authorities investigate whether their acts amount to rebellion.Martial law, the first in more than 40 years, lasted only about six hours but has triggered a domestic firestorm and large street protests. Yoon

REPORT: China’s rampant dam-building spree could dislocate up to 1.2 million in Tibet

Tibet and data on a sample of 193 of them betray a formula for irreparable damage to the Tibetan civilization, the environment, downstream nations, and the climate, said Washington-based Tibet advocacy group International Campaign for Tibet (ICT, savetibet.org) in a new report Dec 5.Tibet’s glacial peaks are the headwaters of the region’s eight major rivers with transnational flows. The report’s

China ‘made wrong bet’ on Assad regime in Syria, say analysts

The collapse of the Assad regime in Syria on Dec. 8 will likely hamper Beijing’s diplomatic ambitions in the Middle East and prompt a reevaluation of its support for Iran and Russia in the region, experts told Radio Free Asia in recent interviews. Back in September 2023, President Xi Jinping rolled out the red carpet for former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma, who made a six-day

Uyghurs renew demands for justice on Genocide Recognition Day

Three years ago, an independent tribunal in London determined that China had committed crimes amounting to genocide against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in its far-western Xinjiang region. Though the tribunal’s Dec. 9, 2021, ruling was non-binding, it served as a clarion call to hold the Chinese government accountable for rights violations in Xinjiang, which Beijing has repeatedly

Taiwan warns internet celebrities on collusion after video uproar

Taiwan said some online influencers have become propaganda tools of Beijing and warned that they will be punished if they break the law after revelations of pay-offs for pro-China messages sparked an uproar on the island. YouTuber Ba Jiong, whose channel, “Fun TV,” boasts more than a million subscribers, posted a video on Dec. 6 detailing what he said was collusion between some Taiwan influencers

China’s maritime movements around Taiwan are largest in decades, Taipei says

China has fielded its largest regional maritime deployment in decades, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday, as it monitors what it says is a surge of Chinese military activities in the Taiwan Strait and Western Pacific. Taiwan has been on high alert since Monday as it braced for expected military drills after President Lai Ching-te sparked Beijing’s ire by making unofficial stops in Hawaii and