Torbjørn Færøvik's Blog, page 276

Hanne Skartveit: Norske politikere la seg flate for Kina

 NATOs generalsekretær Jens Stoltenberg advarte i sterke ordelag da han denne uken møtte en fullsatt aula ved Universitetet i Oslo. – Kina utfordrer våre verdier og vår samfunnsmodell, sa han. Og videre: – Vi kan ikke la kortsiktige økonomiske interesser styre våre sikkerhetspolitiske interesser.Stoltenberg vet hva han snakker om. Mens han var statsminister, havnet Norge i Kinas fryseboks, etter

Anders Magnus: Justisministeren er et dårlig forbilde for norsk ungdom

Justisminister Emilie Enger Mehl er et dårlig forbilde for ungdom når hun anbefaler bruk av kinesiske TikTok. Norges sikkerhetsmyndigheter må rive seg i håret av en sjef med slike holdninger. Det sosiale nettstedet TikTok tilbyr morsomme videoer til publikum. Her kan du legge ut dine egne artige danse-moves, gjerne med etteraping av kjente poplåter. Da sier det seg selv at både mikrofon og kamera

China’s COVID Wave Is Coming

In China, a dam seems on the verge of breaking. Following a wave of protests, the government has begun to relax some of its most stringent zero-COVID protocols, and regional authorities have trimmed back a slew of requirementsfor mass testing, quarantine, and isolation. The rollbacks are coming as a relieffor the many Chinese residents who have been clamoring for change. But they’re also swiftly

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,