Torbjørn Færøvik's Blog, page 260

China scraps some of its most controversial Covid rules, in significant step toward reopening

China announced sweeping changes to its national pandemic response on Wednesday, the clearest and most significant sign yet that the central government is moving away from its strict zero-Covid approach that prompted protests across the country.In a statement reported by state broadcaster CCTV, China’s State Council unveiled 10 new guidelines that loosen some restrictions – most notably, allowing

Torbjørn Færøvik: Når blanke ark blir farlige

Kina er ikke lenger i stand til å beskytte seg mot påvirkning utenfra, verken i cyberspace eller i den jordiske sfære. Den terskelen er for lengst passert. Siden 1980, da reformatoren Deng Xiaoping lanserte «Den åpne dørs politikk», har alle typer utveksling mellom Kina og resten av verden eksplodert. Fra å være en selvforsynt økonomi er landet blitt verdens ledende handelsnasjon. I 2019, samme

Chinese economic growth may never recover from COVID – here’s why

Many countries have had to navigate the balancing act of keeping the economy alive versus protecting citizens from COVID in recent years. In China, patience with its zero-COVID policy – one of the world’s toughest strategies for dealing with the pandemic – are wearing thin among workers and students. Sporadic protests have erupted all over China in recent weeks, triggered by the deaths of ten

Chinese protests are about more than COVID – student discontent has fuelled the biggest movement since Tiananmen Square

Protests have erupted across China, initially in response to the deaths of ten people in a fire in an apartment block in Xinjiang in the country’s northwest. The demonstrations represent the biggest expression of public unrest since the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement was savagely crushed.The deaths have been blamed on China’s strict zero-COVID policy. The deceased were reportedly

Jiang Zemin, 1926-2022: A ChinaFile Conversation

Former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin died on Wednesday at the age of 96, shortly after anger about the zero-COVID policy had boiled over into a wave of protest last weekend. Jiang took the country through the boom years of the 1990s, a time now remembered fondly amid political crackdowns, economic slowdown, and zero-COVID frustrations. A wave of mourning broke out online—but was it a celebration of

In Tibet, Officials’ Pursuit of Zero-COVID Sent Tens of Thousands into Mass ‘Isolation’ Facilities

When COVID hit Tibet in early August, after more than 900 days without a case, the response by Tibetans on social media was generally supportive of the local government and its efforts to contain the spread of the infection. Social media postings by Tibetans within Tibet applauded the heroic dedication of the white-suited anti-epidemic workers known in Chinese as dabai (“Big Whites”),

Paul Krugman: How China Lost the Covid War

Do you remember when Covid was going to establish China as the world’s dominant power? As late as mid-2021, my inbox was full of assertions that China’s apparent success in containing the coronavirus showed the superiority of the Chinese system over Western societies that, as one commentator put it, “did not have the ability to quickly organize every citizen around a single goal.”At this point,

Rishi Sunak: Golden era of UK-China relations is over

Rishi Sunak has said the so-called "golden era" of relations with China is over, as he vowed to "evolve" the UK's stance towards the country. In his first foreign policy speech, the PM said the closer economic ties of the previous decade had been "naïve". He said the UK now needed to replace wishful thinking with "robust pragmatism" towards competitors. But he warned against "Cold War rhetoric",

Torbjørn Færøvik: Flere hundre millioner kinesere har fått nok

Flere hundre millioner kinesere har fått nok. De vil ha slutt på regimets strenge nulltoleranse-politikk og leve normale liv. ”Ned med kommunistpartiet! Ned med Xi Jinping!” ropes det fra Beijing i det kjølige nord til Guangzhou i det subtropiske sør. Ropene vekker oppsikt og med god grunn. Xi Jinping tok kommandoen i Kina i 2012. For bare en måned siden ble han utpekt til å styre i nye fem år.

At the heart of China’s protests against zero-Covid, young people cry for freedom

For the first time in decades, thousands of people have defied Chinese authorities to protest at universities and on the streets of major cities, demanding to be freed not only from incessant Covid tests and lockdowns, but strict censorship and the Communist Party’s tightening grip over all aspects of life.Across the country, “want freedom” has become a rallying cry for a groundswell of protests