Torbjørn Færøvik's Blog, page 316

Chinese article urging country to cut ties with Putin gets 1m views

When an essay from a prominent Shanghai scholar suggested China needed to cut ties with Vladimir Putin as soon as possible over the Ukraine war, the online reaction was swift.Despite being published late on a Friday evening in the Carter Center’s US-China Perception Monitor, Hu Wei’s essay soon gained a million views in and outside China, and was republished into Chinese blogs, non-official media

Sri Lanka cancels school exams over paper shortage as financial crisis bites

Sri Lanka has cancelled school exams for millions of students after running out of printing paper, as the country contends with its worst financial crisis since independence in 1948. Education authorities said on Saturday the term tests, scheduled a week from Monday, were postponed indefinitely due to an acute paper shortage, with Colombo short on funds to finance imports. “School principals

Turkey opens record-breaking bridge between Europe and Asia

President Tayyip Erdogan opened a massive suspension bridge across Turkey's Dardanelles Strait on Friday, the latest in a series of major infrastructure projects which he has prioritized during his two decades in power.Connecting Turkey's European and Asian shores, the 1915 Canakkale Bridge was built by Turkish and South Korean firms with an investment of €2.5 billion ($2.8 billion). It has the

Interview: 'They have been wiping out the entire community' of rights lawyers

Yaxue Cao, editor-in-chief of the U.S.-based website China Change, has been tracking human rights issues in China for years. With the help of human rights attorneys in China, dissident artist Ai Weiwei, professor and film-maker Ai Xiaoming and overseas-based rights activist, she recently released an hour-long film about the crucial role played by Chinese lawyers in defending people's basic

A Chinese vlogger shared videos of war-torn Ukraine. He's been labeled a national traitor

Wang Jixian didn't set out to become the Chinese voice of resistance in Ukraine. The 36-year-old resident of Odesa, a key target in Russia's invasion of the country, simply wanted to show his parents he was fine. "I'm coming back from buying groceries," he said in a video posted to Douyin, China's version of TikTok, on February 24, the first day of the invasion. Wang, a programmer originally from

Ai Weiwei on the new Silk Road: ‘This is China’s counterattack in a global game of chess’

The landscapes in Davide Monteleone’s images of China’s belt and road initiative are very familiar to me. We can see desert, uninhabited wasteland and views along the Yangtze River and in north-west China. There are also photographs showing the characters “Stay strong, Wuhan!” on skyscrapers in neon lights.They are reminiscent of images I took in China, which captured dilapidated cities before

Opinion: China is complicit in Russia’s war on Ukraine

The Chinese Communist Party has a long list of sins, including the systematic repression of basic human rights, industrial espionage, the use of slave labor and genocide. Now, the CCP’s complicity in the atrocities Russia is committing in Ukraine can be added to that list.
Twenty-one years ago, China signed a “Treaty of Friendship” with Russia. It might have started as a marriage of convenience,

4 ways China is quietly making life harder for Russia

China is quietly distancing itself from Russia's sanction-hit economy. The two states proclaimed last month that their friendship had "no limits." That was before Russia launched its war in Ukraine.  Now, with Russia's economy being slammed with sanctions from all over the world, there is growing evidence that China's willingness and ability to aid its northern neighbor may be limited. Beijing

Biden warns China's Xi of consequences for support of Russian invasion

U.S. President Joe Biden warned Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday that Beijing will face serious consequences if it offers support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, according to White House officials. During a two-hour video call, Xi told Biden that China has no interest in a crisis in Ukraine and said talks should take place between NATO countries and Moscow to address the concerns of all

‘We’ll kill you’: Uyghur exile who fled to Arctic Circle still fears reach of Chinese state

In a remote corner north of the Arctic Circle, Memettursun Omer gazes out the window at the swirling snowstorm outside as the tinny voice of a Chinese official blares from the mobile phone in his hand. An Uyghur Muslim from China’s remote north-west Xinjiang region, Omer has travelled about as far as he can go to escape the Chinese authorities – to the small Norwegian town of Kirkenes.So far, he