Torbjørn Færøvik's Blog, page 86

He’s been dead for more than 300 years. So why is this emperor angering millions today?

Despite being dead for more than 300 years, this Indian ruler is still making waves in the nation’s politics. Aurangzeb Alamgir has become so central to India’s fraught political moment, his memory is leading to sectarian violence across the country.The sixth emperor of the famed Mughal dynasty, he is considered by many detractors to be a tyrant who brutalized women, razed Hindu temples, forced

Murong Xuecun: Online dissent is a serious crime in China. So why did a Weibo censor help me publish posts critical of the Communist party?

It is 2013. For four full months, Liu Lipeng engages in dereliction of duty. Every hour the system sends him a huge volume of posts, but he hardly ever deletes a single word. After three or four thousand posts accumulate, he lightly clicks his mouse and the whole lot is released. In the jargon of censors, this is a “total pass in one click”, after which all the posts appear on China’s version of

China appoints new trade envoy in face of tariff turmoil

China has unexpectedly appointed a new trade envoy, as officials said the US's practice of "tariff barriers and trade bullying" is having a serious impact on the global economic order. Li Chenggang, a former assistant commerce minister and WTO ambassador, is taking over from veteran trade negotiator Vice Commerce Minister Wang Shouwen.The shift comes as Beijing refuses to back down in an

Why China curbing rare earth exports is a blow to the US

As the trade war between China and the US escalates, attention has been focused on the increasingly high levels of tit-for-tat tariffs the two countries are imposing on one another. But slapping reciprocal tariffs on Washington is not the only way Beijing has been able to retaliate. China has now also imposed export controls on a range of critical rare earth minerals and magnets, dealing a major

The US–China ‘decoupling’ would be a messy divorce

Even if the writing has been on the wall for years, breaking up is never easy. China and the US don’t often see eye to eye, but for decades, they have broadly agreed that it is better to be trade partners than trade enemies. That alliance is now hanging by a thread. And the real-world collateral damage is already piling up.The presidents of the world’s two biggest economies don’t appear ready to

The global trade war will badly hurt the US and global economies, WTO says

President Donald Trump’s global trade war will hurt economies around the world this year, including the US, according to a new report by the World Trade Organization. The WTO projects global economies will grow more slowly than they would without tariffs — and that will be especially the case in North America, a region dominated by the United States, which will see a greater slowdown than other

China posts unexpectedly strong economic growth before tariffs bite

China has posted unexpectedly strong economic growth in the first three months of 2025, before the full force of US President Donald Trump’s tariffs took effect, and sent an upbeat message about how it plans to weather an ongoing trade war with Washington.Growth in China’s gross domestic product (GDP) hit 5.4% in the first quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday. That was

China's Xi urges Vietnam to oppose 'bullying' as Trump mulls more tariffs

China's President Xi Jinping has called on Vietnam to oppose "unilateral bullying" to upkeep a global system of free trade - though he stopped short of naming the US. It comes as Xi is on a so called "charm offensive" trip across South East Asia, which will also see him visit Malaysia and Cambodia. Though the trip was long-planned, it has taken on heightened significance in the wake of a mounting

Torbjørn Færøvik: Kinas Xi Jinping på frierferd i Asia

Mens Donald Trump tar fatt på en ny kaotisk uke i Det hvite hus, drar Kinas Xi Jinping på frierferd i Asia. I dag tidlig ble han mottatt med blomster og æresbevisninger på flyplassen i Hanoi, hovedstaden i Vietnam. Snart femti år er gått siden Vietnam-krigens slutt. Krigen endte med et massivt nederlag for USA og en hastig, ydmykende evakuering. Senere amerikanske presidenter, først Bill Clinton,

China told Hong Kong’s last major opposition party to shut down: members

Senior members of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party, the city’s last remaining major opposition party, said that Chinese officials and their proxies had warned the party to disband or face “serious consequences,” including possible arrests. Founded in 1994, the Democratic Party was Hong Kong’s first major pro-democracy political force. It emerged from a movement that began in 1982 to oppose any