David Rennie
@DSORennie
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Geopolitics Editor & author of “The Telegram” column @TheEconomist.Postings in Beijing, Washington, London, Brussels, Washington, Beijing, Sydney. Panelist @1a
London
Joined November 2013
Singapore: SecDef Mattis declines to comment on London attacks: "I like to learn about something before I talk."
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130am in Beijing. Still going. Cries of “we want freedom, we want human rights”
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Police arrived at peaceful Covid protest in Beijing, on Liangma river. Candles being lit. Earlier, chants in honour of dead in recent fire in Urumqi,and “Shanghai police let them go”- reference to arrests today
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My taxi in Hebei ski country just pulled off for two-minute battery change by robot. A fresh battery lasts 150km in winter, says driver. He pays 45yuan ($7) for a fresh battery. Impressive system, all the more for being totally workaday, not exotic. Future here now for China EVs.
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The depressing reality is that inside China, this very basic detail - that Chinese nuclear plants have released far more radiation into the sea - is unknown. Instead, the propaganda machine has v successfully whipped up anti-Japan anger and panic.
If you’re worried about eating Japanese seafood because of the water release from Fukushima, then you’d better stop eating seafood from anywhere.
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After six years and 220 Chaguan columns, it’s time to leave Beijing. It has been an adventure and a privilege. My next beat will include a dose of China, happily: I’ll be writing a new weekly geopolitics column in @TheEconomist. Column number 5 for me
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China puts a lot of work into covering up repression in Xinjiang, wheeling out party-approved imams and diplomats from Iran, Russia and other allies to declare that Islam is flourishing. Here’s some on the ground reporting from Xinjiang this week 1/
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China's vow to end extreme poverty in 2020 involves stunning numbers: billions of $ spent, millions moved from rural homes. But don't miss what it really is: a political campaign to integrate the poor into the natl economy, & train them to thank the Party.
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Just for clarity, President-elect Trump ditching campaign promises that could never have been kept is evidence of cynicism, not moderation.
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Next time you hear that Chinese assertiveness is a reaction to Trump and Biden era “containment”, recall how China took advantage of the Obama administration’s desire for cooperation and dialogue to annexe chunks of the S China Sea
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When I was 1st posted to China, 22 yrs ago, state media went to great lengths to keep the words of US presidents from the public. Not now. Trump’s confused travel ban all over official media. Chinese readers lamenting in comments that it’s too little too late, so much time wasted.
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Chants of "thank you, thank you" as DC Nat Guard help take elevated photos of #womensmarch with protestors' phones
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Surely they saw this coming?.
Fortune-tellers normally busy soothsaying for tourists in Hong Kong's Temple Street say they are now struggling amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
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To be fair, Britain is a little busy trying to work out its Britain policy.
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@lionelbarber @FinancialTimes This is magisterial and must-read but, as one of @BorisJohnson’s successors as @telegraph Brussels corr from 2005-7, I fear Sir Max is being too easy on the role his paper played in establishing the idea that Europe has only foolish and bad ideas, imposed on a hapless Britain 1/.
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Russian hacking is like a virus in the US body politic. But the usual bipartisan immune response is not kicking in
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Xi Jinping says China should lead the “reform of global governance” and “move closer to the centre stage.” What world order does China want? I asked dozens of senior officials and experts in Beijing and other capitals for this seven-part report 1/3 .
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NB the law is treated here as no more than a lever by which power is exercised. Xinhua’s moral: that a jealous America used “law” to try to contain China but was outmatched by Chinese power. The implications of such a bleak worldview for the coming international order are serious.
Welcome home! She was arrested because of a rising China. So was her release!
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It was not obvious, a year ago, that in early December 2022 Joe Biden would be in a stronger political position than either Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin. And that both Xi and Putin would be wrestling with mistakes rooted in their own, autocratic hubris.
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SecDef Mattis at #SLD17 quotes Churchill on US: "bear with us, once we have exhausted all possible alternatives, we will do the right thing".
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My first visit to Beijing, in the mid-1990s. I fell in love with its ancient lanes, or hutongs. I'm still cycling the hutongs, though lots have gone now. This week's episode of @TheEconomist China podcast, Drum Tower, is my audio postcard to Old Beijing.
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This week I asked several experienced Western envoys to Beijing to explain China's recent, v assertive diplomacy. The most striking reply? "China thinks the West is weak, venal and ill-disciplined, and must be brought to heel, like a dog." My Chaguan
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Trump supporter at Reno campaign office tells me there will be "8m fraudulent votes" this Nov. Her source: "I read it on Facebook".
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400,000 Muslims fought in WW1 alongside British officers (among them my grandfather). Time to recover that history
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I spent most of last week on an official tour of poverty alleviation work in a mountainous region of Sichuan. Hard to convey the sheer intensity of the propaganda. Every home visited in every village has a poster of Xi Jinping.
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For China it is always, always about China. Ukraine and NATO and Russia are only a proxy for China’s resentment at Western “meddling” over Taiwan and Xinjiang and HK.
Interesting piece in PLA Daily: repeats framing of US as "instigator," accuses it of forming gangs/cliques that undermine peace & stability & exploiting ethnic/language differences to destabilize Ukraine .(h/t @niubi):
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Whatever Team Trump's motives for wanting a Moscow back channel, they trusted Russian spies more than USA's. My blog
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Hard to explain to outsiders how exceptional it is for foreign business leaders to be this candid and brave, when describing what they see on the ground in China. «China's Leadership Is Prisoner of Its Own Narrative»
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The day after Brexit vote I raised tragedy of Sunderland Nissan workers being led to vote Leave by Brexiteers when I debated @aroberts_andrew and David Miliband on US TV. Roberts mocked doom-mongers, said balance of trade meant UK had the upper hand.
Farage, Rees Mogg, Gove, Johnson, Davis etc will no doubt be explaining why this is good news to all the Nissan workers they encouraged to vote Leave.
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European envoy tells me not only is @SBG1 right that Trump dropped Art 5 from NATO speech but US dips briefed allies to expect Art 5 mention.
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It's getting harder for China to deny turning Xinjiang into a police state, so hardline officials and propagandists have a new tack-proudly admitting to iron-fisted policies. My prediction: the West will find this "so-what?" defiance hard to counter
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The Economist has a new China column, "Chaguan", or "Teahouse". I'm honoured to be its author. My first column explains the name: the Teahouse as a public place where ideas both high and low could be exchanged, that the state never fully controlled.
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Dear Americans celebrating Britain's "independence". It's the independence of a divorce, of losing your job. That sort of independence.
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China is working hard to hide its cruelties in Xinjiang. This chilling, two-part Drum Tower podcast by @aliceysu explains how Uyghurs overseas are controlled and silenced by threats to their families still in China. Do listen. and
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Cover-ups have costs. Distrust of Chinese stats helps explain why the world’s not debating China’s giant covid bet. Alone of big countries its aim is 0 new infections even if that hurts China, global travel and trade. A thread on China's unique exit plan 1
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Serious question re Trump's tweet-tantrum at @nytimes. If winning the presidency a week ago isn't enough to make a man magnanimous, what is?.
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Nearly midnight and cars honking in support on Third Ring Road
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@lionelbarber @FinancialTimes @BorisJohnson @Telegraph @TheEconomist My then boss told me: “@Telegraph readers hate the EU so much they don’t want to read about it.” This was the logical end of years of unserious, unprincipled, lazy polemic. Europe’s wickedness was established as a feeling, a delicious channeling of contempt and rage. 8/.
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Charlottesville: President Trump flunks a moral test. Because for him everything, always, is about him, not the USA
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In 1968 China condemned the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia as “imperialism” and “fascism”, pouring scorn on Moscow’s claims to respect CZ territorial integrity. In 2022 Vladimir Putin is an imperialist, & Xi’s China does not care
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@lionelbarber @FinancialTimes @BorisJohnson @Telegraph @TheEconomist Facts didn’t matter because the EU didn’t sue and if Eurocrats complained that proved the UK press was doing something right. @BorisJohnson didn’t invent that journalism, but he & Sir Max put it on page 1, week after week, forcing others to compete, and changing UK debate END.
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Do read this. Really exceptional piece on self-defeating Trump critics, by Venezuelan observer of the Chávez era
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In my experience Chinese officials are baffled when told this looks patronising to ethnic minorities, or asked how many costumed delegates give big policy speeches. But then, I’ve seen CCTV crews tell doctors in minority villages to “sing your ethnic song and dance” for cameras.
It's nice that the Han-dominated CCP lets minorities engage in performative ethnicity, it would be nicer still if they had the option to opt out of the dog and pony show and not to pose for the cameras decked out in extravagantly impractical, albeit charming, costumes.
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There are 207,140 police in England and Wales, of whom 5,647 are authorised to carry firearms. People shot dead by police 2012-2015: 1.
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Not normally impressed by the electric scooters of Beijing, I’m a 🚲 guy. But this one.
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Quite something to watch an embassy evacuate all its diplomats from China, to ensure their personal safety. But that’s where we are. My news story on Lithuania’s turn in the barrel as target of China’s angriest bullying
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For diplomats, analysts and journalists living in China in Dec 2018, the moment Michael Kovrig was snatched from a Beijing street by black-clad security agents was a nightmare come to life. Now he tells his story on @TheEconomist Drum Tower podcast
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China is hard for the US to beat in Latin America. To advance strategic interests, China happily cuts deals with left- and right-wing leaders alike. That pragmatism means ideological warnings from Washington don’t work well. Deals and FDI are what counts.
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Very elegant and generous tribute, from a political leader often treated as a pantomime villain by British press.
To you, she was your Queen. To us, she was The Queen. She will be with all of us forever.
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People will risk a lot to avoid losing something precious. That instinct outweighs promises of a reward. Hong Kongers aren’t protesting in hopes of new freedoms from China. They are fighting to keep what they have. My Chaguan
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For all Europe’s record of disunity/weakness over China, a big confrontation is brewing. EU bosses are v,v focused on overcapacity in Chinese EVs. If millions of subsidised cars are dumped on Europe, Macron, Scholz &co have to act
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Interesting moment. A man’s voice shouts “I’m from Xinjiang, thank you.” A young woman shouts “we’re all Chinese”. A third voice “we are all Xinjiangers”.
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Every parent-journalist, ever, feels his pain RT This BBC interview went horribly wrong in an amazing way
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At some point, the ill-explained, weeks-long disappearance of China's foreign minister will come to an end. Until then, official silence about Qin Gang - beyond a line that he is unwell - speaks volumes about today's China. My Chaguan.
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My first geopolitics column for @TheEconomist is out this week. Column No.5 for me, after Charlemagne, Bagehot, Lexington and Chaguan. It’s called The Telegram: a nod to Kennan but also to diplomats’ cables and foreign correspondents’ dispatches
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I may have to dust off my “Richard Scarry rule” of European politics. Namely that governments fear to cross any industry routinely featured in children’s books.
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First time I’ve seen this: Chinese state TV pushing out an AI-generated animation showing workers across America striking and rioting as a result of income inequality and democratic crisis.
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Crowd is no longer only young and students. Cars coming to see, parked on flyover to see. An old lady joined in cries of “liberate Beijing” and “liberate China” with “let the children go back to school”.
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Why @Schwarzenegger is lending his muscle to a nationwide campaign against gerrymandering. My Lexington
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A coronation is a religious ceremony, consecrating a monarch who's also, in effect, a priest. Lots of ordinations and consecrations, in many religions, look odd to outsiders. Not great manners to mock, generally.
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The expulsion of so many outstanding, professional colleagues hurts the outside world’s understanding of China. But it robs China, too, of sources of information its leaders used to value semi-openly. I have never forgotten this 2001 Zhu Rongji press conference I attended 1/3.
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One handy Covid detail is that plain clothes police are easy to see in their regulation N95 face masks.
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Why Xi's China is reviving Maoist tools of social control, delegating powers to grassroots CCP members with hazy legal mandates. W/thanks to two fine books: "Outsourcing Repression" by @onglynette and "The Art of Political Control in China" by @mattinglee
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Man with Ukrainian flag causing a lot of turned heads in central Beijing
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China announces it will count as Covid deaths those directly caused by Covid but not “deaths with Covid”, where an underlying condition is also involved. This differs from methodology used in other countries whose high death rates have been mocked by Chinese officials since 2020.
China revealed its methodology for calculating the death toll of #COVID in a press conference on Tuesday: Deaths due to pneumonia & respiratory failure caused by COVID which is determined to be the primary cause are classified as deaths due to COVID infection. Deaths caused by /1
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@lionelbarber @FinancialTimes @BorisJohnson @Telegraph I inherited Boris’s office, with its fine view over a Brussels park and lake, and his assistant who told adoring tales of her scallywag boss. I also inherited a beat predicated on the idea that stories about the EU did not have to be wholly true as long as they were funny 2/.
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For 60 years China’s ethnic Korean minority has run bilingual schools. They were studied as a model. Then national leaders called promoting Mandarin a q of “national security”. My Chaguan from Yanbian, the latest ethnic region to see coercive assimilation
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@lionelbarber @FinancialTimes @BorisJohnson @Telegraph I wrote at the time that UK journalism felt like school bullying and the EU was the kid in the playground with glasses who had to be punched, because it never fought back and deserved it. I should say I had some fine Foreign desk editors, who let me knock down false stories 3/.
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More police arriving. Seems they want to wrap this up. It’s five hours since protest started
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"A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man you can trust with nuclear weapons" - Hillary Clinton on Donald Trump.
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In some countries, eg UK, a politician hailing a slain soldier and praising his widow to forestall criticism of an mission would be shamed
That was a Reaganesque moment for Trump
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A thought for the next four years from here in Beijing: ignore any US politician talking about how “tough” they are. American gridlock is a win for China. That’s how Communist Party leaders see it: that their destiny is struggle with the US, and American divisions help China.
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Jiuzi village, Dingyuan county. Long lines of mourners for Li Keqiang at his childhood home in rural Anhui.
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Biggest US challenge to China isn't from lifelong hawks who think Communist leaders incapable of changing. It comes from unhappy ex-doves, making one last push for meaningful change. Those unhapp ex-friends matter as much as Trump. My Chaguan
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Ahead of me in Miami traffic jam. Not certain it's official campaign slogan
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When the German defence minister has to lecture a Republican US president about Russia, and the importance of Western values
America cannot be "equidistant between its allies and those who question our values, borders and Int'l Law". Von der Leyen to Trump #MSC2017.
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To end, I see comments asking why this isn’t a report on the war in Gaza. We are reporting that in @TheEconomist , as we should. This is a thread about China, and forced secularisation in Xinjiang. I’m privileged to be a reporter on the ground in China. This is what I saw. 14/fin.
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@globaltimesnews Beneath contempt. Attempting to use the tragically early death of a respected journalist and father of young children to spread anti-vaccine disinformation. Shameful and harmful to China.
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Talk to people on the ground in China, and there is no doubt the country is suffering from a post-pandemic crisis of economic confidence. My Chaguan from the southern city of Foshan from @TheEconomist
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China doesn’t just use bulldozers and re-education camps to smother Uyghur culture in Xinjiang: tourism is another deadly weapon. My Chaguan on Kashgar mosques turned into bars for Chinese drinkers, and the fake history park built around a holy shrine.
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"We're just so happy with how everything turned out" says flat Donald Trump, sounding like a. what's the word. a loser.
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Internet loving Merkel's horrified looks at Trump. Actually they're an important reminder: this isn't normal.My blog
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To grasp the state of debate in today’s China, consider Deng Xiaoping’s 1980 speech on the need for collective leadership: a retired cadre who voiced such views now could be punished, for Xi Jinping is trampling Deng’s advice 1/
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Tim Kaine presents immigration as a vote of confidence in USA. Asks naturalised citizens to raise hands: "Thanks for choosing us.".
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COVID-19 won't sever China from the world. China's too big a market and too efficient a producer for that. But the virus clarifies a global wariness about dependency on China, and will drive diversification. Call it an emotional decoupling. My Chaguan
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This poster in a Tibetan minority village reads: “If you have water to drink, don’t forget the person who dug the well. If you’re happy, don’t forget the Communist Party”
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Lots of China pieces are called must-read. This one deserves the tag. Only @OrvilleSchell could have written it, arguably. Lays out how 50 years of US-China engagement have often been humiliating & shameful for US-and how we will miss it now it's dead.
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From mass weddings to promote frugality and New Era Civilisation Practice Stations in every neighbourhood, the Communist Party is expanding its presence in everyday lives as a problem-solving, all-powerful force. My report on Xi-era social engineering
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In provincial Chinese villages and obscure cities, the Communist Party is turning virus-control into a mass political campaign, complete with party members manning checkpoints and propaganda loudspeakers on street poles. My Chaguan.
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@lionelbarber @FinancialTimes @BorisJohnson @Telegraph I rang London and was told to speak to the home news desk. I explained the scheme to the editor on duty. He was sincerely baffled. “But that’s helpful to the UK,” he said. “Yes,” I said. “It sounds sensible,” he went on, audibly at a loss at what to do with the story. 5/.
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From Washington to Berlin and Brussels, Western leaders are gripped by deep fatalism about China’s illiberal, statist course, which they know isn’t about to change. What they don’t know is what to do about it. My Chaguan, with reporting from #SCF22
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America and China really could stumble into a new cold war. Trade ties alone cannot save them. My special report for @TheEconomist. It has been a sobering few months of research, from Chinese factory floors to the corridors of Washington power.
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Beijing noticeably quieter now, office towers closed to visitors. Hutong alleys in old city closed to non-locals. Parks shut. Most shops shut. More people quarantined as close contacts. But not the panic of March 2020. It’s like living in the world’s most boring disaster movie
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Thing I learned today: the emblem of Peking University was designed by Lu Xun.
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Chinese state media with the scoops.
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This poster reads: “Grateful to the Party, Listening to the Party, Follow the Party”
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