Torbjørn Færøvik's Blog, page 192

National strike held over India doctor's murder

Doctors in India have begun a national strike, escalating the protest against the rape and murder of a female colleague in the West Bengal city of Kolkata. The Indian Medical Association (IMA), the country's largest grouping of doctors, said all non-essential hospital services would be shut down across the country on Saturday. The IMA described last week's killing as a "crime of barbaric scale

From China's Past: EMPEROR QIANLONG’S RESPONSE TO THE KING OF ENGLAND

In 1793, the King of England sent a mission under Lord Macartney to China to open regular diplomatic and commercial relations with China. The King instructed Macartney to deliver a letter to the Emperor requesting, among other things, that the English be allowed to have an ambassador (also referred to as an “envoy”) who would live in the Chinese capital and who would help represent and protect

From China's Past: The Risky Journey That Saved One of China’s Greatest Literary Treasures

My father was not quite 20 years old in the fall of 1937 when he set out on a thousand-mile trek across China. He didn’t do this on his own, but rather with staff and students from the evacuated Nanjing University—and his school wasn’t unique in doing this, either. Across China, students, professors and staff crammed as much as they could into carts, wheelbarrows and their own backpacks. They

Just Where Exactly Did China Get the South China Sea Nine-Dash Line From?

First the dotted line on Chinese maps lost two of its hyphens in 1952, when, in a moment of socialist bonhomie with Vietnam, Chairman Mao Zedong abandoned Chinese claims to the Gulf of Tonkin. Then, on July 12, 2016, an international tribunal ruled that the now nine-dash demarcation could not be used by Beijing to make historic claims to the South China Sea, parts of which are claimed by six

In Retrospect: Who Died in Beijing, and Why?

Robin Munro was among the more than 1,000 foreign journalists in Beijing on the night of the army's final drive to clear Tiananmen Square in 1989. What happened? Who died, and where did the killings take place? This article appeared in The Nation June 11, 1990. Read more

Why China Won’t Allow Single Women to Freeze Their Eggs

Last week, Xu Zaozao, also known as Teresa Xu, received the final verdictfor a lawsuit she filed in 2019 against an obstetrics hospital that denied her access to egg-freezing services. Rejecting Xu's third appeal on Aug. 7, the Third Intermediate People's Court in Beijing sided with the hospital, saying it did not violate her rights by doing so. For the claimant, the outcome of a six-year battle

China's rhetoric turns dangerously real for Taiwanese

Calls to denounce “die hard" Taiwanese secessionists, a tipline to report them and punishments that include the death penalty for “ringleaders” – Beijing’s familiar rhetoric against Taiwan is turning dangerously real. The democratically-governed island has grown used to China’s claims. Even the planes and ships that test its defences have become a routine provocation. But the recent moves to

US soldier pleads guilty to selling secrets to China

A US Army analyst has pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to sell military secrets to China, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has said. Sgt Korbein Schultz was arrested in March after an investigation by the FBI and US Army counterintelligence alleged that he was paid $42,000 (£33,000) in exchange for dozens of sensitive security records.The criminal conspiracy began in June 2022 and continued

Ex-PM's daughter picked as youngest ever Thai leader

Thailand's parliament has picked Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the daughter of billionaire tycoon and former leader Thaksin, as prime minister. At 37, she will be the country's youngest PM and the second woman in the post, after her aunt Yingluck. Her selection comes just two days after former PM Srettha Thavisin was dismissed by a constitutional court. Both are from the Pheu Thai Party, which came

Norman Pearlstine: "My Dinner with Jiang Zemin"

My first memories of China go back almost 50 years. Sitting in front of our 10-in. Philco television, over milk and peanut-butter sandwiches, my closest third-grade friends and I watched, with fascination and terror, the grainy news footage of Chinese soldiers crossing the Yalu River into Korea. It was 1950, the year after Mao Zedong and the communists had taken control of China, exiling General