Sue-Lin Wong 黄淑琳
@suelinwong
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Southeast Asia correspondent @TheEconomist | Previously in China | Host of "The Prince", a podcast about Xi Jinping
Joined February 2011
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I took a holiday cruise to the Spratly Islands in the middle of the South China Sea and got chased by the Chinese coast guard. My story in this week's summer double issue:
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Very sad I won’t be able to continue reporting from Hong Kong. I loved getting to know the city and its people. I will miss you all:
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How exactly did China turn Hong Kong into a police state? It wasn't just the national security law. It was decades in the making. The party used infiltration, co-option, fear and intimidation - tactics it is now trying in the rest of the world. Our essay:
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I spent the past few months following the evolution of a group of Hong Kong protesters - frontliners, moderates, high schoolers - as they fight for democracy against the world's most powerful authoritarian state. This week's
@FT
magazine cover story by me
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Xi Jinping is the most powerful person in the world. But there's still so much we don't know about him. I went searching. I'm excited to host
@TheEconomist
's first long-form podcast series. The Prince is out on Sept 14. Listen to our trailer now:
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After 8 years covering China, I'm starting a new beat covering Southeast Asia for
@TheEconomist
. I'm sad to be leaving behind the China story, grateful to all my wonderful colleagues & sources and excited for the adventures that lie ahead
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As I've been covering the escalating political crisis in Hong Kong, I’ve often wondered: does Hong Kong still have the rule of law? A thread and my story with
@nicolle_liu
about what we discovered 1/
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Some personal news: thrilled to be joining
@TheEconomist
as a China correspondent next month. Sad to leave
@FT
& all my wonderful colleagues. The memories of covering the 2019 Hong Kong protests with you all (& the broader press corps) will stay with me for the rest of my life
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Thank you everyone who has listened to The Prince & for all your kind reviews/messages. If you'd like to know more, I'll be answering some of your questions on a bonus episode with
@aliceysu
coming out soon. Reply here & ask me anything about the series!
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Studying China today is "the hardest it has been since the end of the Maoist era": my story this week on why the number of students in the West who study China is declining & what the long-term implications might be
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Excited to announce I'll soon take up a new position as
@Reuters
South China correspondent and will move to Shenzhen to open our bureau there. My grandparents were born in very poor villages in southern China - now I'm going back to cover what is the largest megacity in the world
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We went behind the front lines of the Hong Kong protests to speak to the lawyers, doctors, accountants, bankers, programmers, artists & many other professionals who are supporting from behind the scenes. "We fight on, each in our own way," they told us
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Unsure what to make of those
#chinacoup
rumours? To learn more about how China's leader actually wields power, listen to The Prince. It's
@TheEconomist
's first long-form podcast. I'm excited to host it. All 8 episodes are out today, on your podcast app:
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Hong Kong protesters focused on spreading the word to mainland Chinese today. Just got off the subway in Kowloon & within 1 min was airdropped 3 times abt the extradition law, recent protests in Wuhan & detentions of human rights lawyers/Marxist students/Uighur activists in China
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I visited China’s largest surveillance tech expo with
@QianerLiu
this week held once every two years in Shenzhen - “the world security capital.” A thread & our story about China’s latest new surveillance craze: emotion recognition 1/
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Delighted that for the first time ever in the history of The Economist, a podcast we made is also our cover story. To listen to our 8 episode series on the life and rise of China's leader Xi Jinping, search for The Prince wherever you get your podcasts
Xi Jinping’s project to restore the Communist Party’s overbearing role has grim implications for China—and the world
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Breaking: incubation period (from exposure to signs of symptoms) of the coronavirus is around 10 days, says China's health commission. A big difference between SARS and coronavirus is it is possible to contract the coronavirus during its incubation period
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Over fried rice and milk tea, Joshua Wong tells me about Spider-Man, defying Beijing and why we foreign correspondents are so predictable. I chat with
@joshuawongcf
in what is (I’m guessing!) the first ever Lunch with the
@FT
between two Wongs
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I wrote about how many public health experts in Hong Kong are concerned with the way Sinovac is being rolled out in HK but are too afraid to speak publicly for fear it will hurt their careers or even be deemed a violation of the new security law:
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As anger in China grows over the initial cover up of the Wuhan virus, here is a
@FT
graphic showing a surge in keyword searches on Google (blocked in China) for "Wuhan pneumonia" in early Jan. The same spike didn't appear on Chinese search engine Baidu until Jan 20
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Just got off the first high speed rail from Shenzhen to Hong Kong which connects the two cities in 14 minutes. This is what the jurisdiction of West Kowloon train station in HK now looks like:
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What happened to Hong Kong matters for all of us. "All the strategies that China used to convert Hong Kong from a free society into an authoritarian one are in operation in your society," says CCP expert Ching Cheong. For more, watch our documentary:
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As the dust settles after China’s party congress, join me and
@DSORennie
in this bonus episode of The Prince as we talk about why Xi Jinping is more powerful than ever and draw together themes from the podcast. A thread on takeaways from the congress:
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This week, Wanzi, a women’s workers’ rights activist in Shenzhen, was detained for selling book bags on Taobao that promoted ... the Communist Manifesto. This is just the latest in an ongoing crackdown on labour activism in China inc the crushing of student Marxists in 2018 1/
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No city in history has grown faster than Shenzhen yet it has come at a price. I spoke to some of the migrant workers who, while building the city, contracted silicosis. Wang Zhaohong is one such person. He expects to suffocate before Chinese New Year
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Our
@Reuters
colleagues Wa Lone & Kyaw Soe Oo exposed a brutal massacre in Myanmar. They were arrested for reporting the truth and framed by the police. Today they were jailed for 7 years. They should be free.
#FreeWaLoneKyawSoeOo
#Journalismisnotacrime
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“8 demands, not 1 less” - mainland Chinese social media users outraged by a recent Huawei scandal & inspired by the rhetoric of the Hong Kong protesters demand an independent investigation into the company & the Shenzhen police. By me and
@QianerLiu
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A young Mao Zedong was cut from a film about the birth of the Chinese Communist Party, after internet users accused the actor of cheating on his girlfriend. They said he was too immoral to play Mao. Never mind the real Mao was a zealous philanderer. By me:
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In the years leading up to the handover in 1997, the Communist Party clandestinely sent tens of thousands of mainland officials to HK. It prioritised infiltrating departments like the police, customs & immigration to ensure control over the city's security apparatus
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Huawei ordered employees to cancel meetings with US contacts, repatriated Americans working at its Shenzhen headquarters & abruptly cancelled a workshop w American participants, as tensions rise btw HW and US gov. Scoop by me,
@JKynge
&
@louiseflucas
@FT
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I went to five 7/11s & three newsstands in my neighbourhood this morning to try to buy a copy of Apple Daily - everywhere was sold out. People have started an anonymous google sheet updating places in Hong Kong where Apple Daily is still available:
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China is on an unprecedented, multi-pronged propaganda push to try to capture the narrative of the Hong Kong protests, the largest uprising on Chinese soil since 1989 yet largely occurring beyond the Great Firewall. By me,
@cdcshepherd
&
@QianerLiu
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For the past 10 days, events in Hong Kong have shocked the world. Our
@FT
Big Read today dives into how the geopolitical chessboard of the trade war & next week’s G20 plus millions of angry Hong Kongers led to the biggest climb down of Xi Jinping’s career
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"I didn't realise they would just die like that, so quickly and so easily." We spoke to Salia Yang from Wuhan who lost her mum and grandpa to coronavirus within 2 days of each other, after they struggled to get admitted to hospital. By Robin Yu & me
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Most remarkable part of this is Beijing’s influence over a Hong Kong private company. Chinese state tv announced the resignation of Cathay’s CEO before Cathy did & Beijing told its major shareholder to make “management changes”, according to a
@FT
source
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1/ This started out as a story about factory workers in southern China wanting to form a union and became about police abuse, a vocal activist being “disappeared” and an outpouring of support from students around the country. By me and
@cdcshepherd
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Former pro-democracy lawmakers told me that starting from the 1980s, Chinese state security would wine and dine them. Several pro-democracy politicians were co-opted. "They offered us money, women, positions of power," one said. "They can give you anything, except democracy."
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“Special conditions” and “large scale activities” in Hong Kong today mean cross border buses from Shenzhen are being rerouted. It’s incredible that Shenzhen is only a 14 minute train ride from HK yet almost everyone I’ve spoken to here in SZ doesn’t know what is going on
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The
@Reuters
Shenzhen bureau in southern China joins colleagues around the world who stand in solidarity with Wa Lone & Kyaw Soe Oo. They did their jobs by telling the truth and for that they were unjustly jailed
#FreeWaLoneKyawSoeOo
#JournalismIsNotACrime
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Perhaps the party's most important tool was its United Front, a shadowy department that operates around the world, cultivating individuals, businesses and organisations. There is nowhere better to understand how the United Front really works than Hong Kong
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In 1997, there were fewer than 9000 civil society orgs registered in HK. By 2017, there were over 38,000. Many were legal fronts for the party's underground operations, posing as alumni groups, chambers of commerce, etc, party expert Ching Cheong told me
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A history of dissent in Hong Kong. Deep dives into how the Chinese Communist Party, tycoons & young people are shaping the city. Fictional short stories about HK life in the 1980s. 5 books (& a thread) that help explain the current discontent in HK. By me
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And so the Shenzhen Foreign Correspondents’ Club is founded. Come join us, we offer beers and are in need of more members
@mstandaert
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Big brands surrendered. HSBC froze bank accounts of pro-democracy activists. The Big Four accounting firms and many other western biz published newspaper ads congratulating John Lee on becoming the city's leader, chosen from a shortlist of one, despite being loathed in the city
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Across society, the party used fear and intimidation to induce self-censorship, a tactic it has honed to perfection over years in the mainland. Look up in today's Hong Kong and Perry Link's famous anaconda in the chandelier is there:
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Around 40 student activists "were disappeared" in southern China at dawn today after police stormed their apartment. I visited the students yesterday and they told me they feared the police would raid soon. Read more in my story with
@cdcshepherd
here:
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Chinese students at Nanjing University were assaulted and hauled away after they led protests against the university for refusing to recognise an on-campus Marxist student society - ironic, I know
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Every major pro-democracy news outlet has been forced to close. The newspapers which now matter are Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po - the party uses them as proxies to help run the city (and its funding of pro-Beijing propanganda on social media reaches beyond just HK)
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China itself also changed. For many years after the handover, party officials & scholars would say that China & HK could each mind their own business (河水不犯井水) But once Xi Jinping came to power, the idiom they used changed: spare the rod, spoil the child (棍棒底下出孝子）
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So in 2020 with the new security law and HK police backing them, China's state security and United Front started using their middlemen to make personal threats against HKers they had cultivated, according to interviews I did with 6 people who had direct contact with middlemen
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The last
#hongkong
protesters have only just left the starting point, six hours after today’s march started and the crowd stretches for as far as the eye can see at Wanchai. It’s going to be a long night
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I heard stories from several Hong Kongers with family or other ties to the mainland about how the party spent years trying to build & maintain relationships and exchange information. Stories abound of the party finding the unique pressure points of thousands of HKers in this way
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I’m currently at a tech conference in Shenzhen that has video cameras everywhere tracking where attendees are. It’s a way to display technology that is already being rolled out in apartment compounds in Beijing, one of the company’s reps told me.
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China's coronavirus response has laid bare the structure of its surveillance state: above all it is designed to clamp down on diverse voices & bolster the CCP, rather than transparently & rapidly identify & respond to a public health emergency. Our story:
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The Economist is hiring a new Asia correspondent! Come and be my colleague. Applications are due by 20 Nov. Details here:
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Cheekiest airdrop of Sunday’s protest may have been QR codes which look like WeChat red packets. But once you scan them - instead of getting free money - you get information about why opposing the extradition law will protect any assets you have in Hong Kong
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Multiple attempts by China's propaganda machine to whip up feelings of patriotism & self-sacrifice among women during coronavirus has had the opposite effect - it has been labelled sexist & cruel & further undermined trust in gov. By
@QianerLiu
& me
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While making The Prince, I came across revealing interviews, memoirs and articles by or about Xi Jinping that we just didn't have time for in the podcast. Read more about these nuggets in this feature, with huge thanks to
@RosieBlau
&
@AbbieFS
&
@1843mag
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Millions of Chinese grew up watching uncensored tv shows & movies from the West, translated by volunteer subtitling enthusiasts. It is considered one of Chinese history's great translation projects. This week, I wrote about how & why it's coming to an end:
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Hong Kong’s chief executive Carrie Lam has offered to resign on several occasions in recent weeks over her botched handling of the HK protests but Beijing has refused to let her stand down. Our
@FT
scoop
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"It is really, really clear that it is now much, much harder for a poor, rural kid to get into a good university,” says Scott Rozelle of Stanford. This week, I examined the current state of inequality in China through its growing urban-rural education gap:
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Some people have asked if there will be a Chinese version of The Prince. So I was excited when I realised a group of anonymous internet users have translated the series into Chinese on YouTube. I'm told there are more podcast translation projects to come!
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Hong Kong released a sample exam paper today for Citizenship and Social Development (previously known as Liberal Studies) with questions about the national security law. What is the right answer?
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“No one follows the rules and guidelines any more,” a frontline police officer told us for our story today. “When my colleagues break the law, they never admit it and our superiors provide cover for them.” 10/
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Thanks to everyone who spoke to me for this piece. One key difference btw HK & the rest of China is its RoL & whether it can maintain it is a key q for its future. Imp to remember this ongoing crisis was sparked by a legal bill & the desire for HKers to maintain the RoL 17/17
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Beijing’s understanding of the RoL is fundamentally different to how the Hong Kong ppl understand it. Beijing emphasises the aspect of the RoL where citizens obey the law & de-emphasises the gov being bound by the same law,
@WilsonLeungWS
&
@antd
told me 3/
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Honoured to have won a
@HRPressAwards
with
@cdcshepherd
for our
@Reuters
coverage of the largest-scale mass arrests focused on students in China since the Tiananmen Square Massacre. It’s devastating around 40 people are still missing and the clampdown is widening
@suelinwong
and
@cdcshepherd
win breaking news prize
@HRPressAwards
for their coverage of the Jasic workers protests and subsequent crackdown on student activists
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Since March, all Hong Kong residents over 30 have had the luxury of choosing btw Pfizer-BioNTech & Sinovac. But the rollout has been highly politicised. “The politicians all got Sinovac & the medical experts all got BioNTech: what does that tell you?” said one such expert
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Our
@FT
scoop today - the US barred its outgoing consul general in Hong Kong from giving a tough valedictory speech on the
#HongKongprotests
because of fears it would derail US-China trade talks. By me &
@Aime_Williams
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Despite marketing itself as a champion of social causes inc fighting against US police brutality of African Americans, Nike has just pulled a line of sports shoes in China after its designer expressed support of the HK protests. By
@hancocktom
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Delighted to be a finalist for this Amnesty Media Award - alongside three other female journalists doing great work around the world - for my
@ft
coverage of the Hong Kong protests
Happy to announce the finalists for
#AmnestyMediaAwards
2020 GABY RADO category for early career journalists:
@SaharZand
▪️
@suelinwong
▪️
@mck_beth
▪️
@sneweyy
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“Lying flat is standing up, horizontally. Lying flat is having a backbone.” I wrote about the philosophy of "lying flat": how its obscure origins evolved into a passive resistance that was then erratically censored by some of China's tech firms
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I interviewed four senior members of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement who Beijing have labeled HK’s “Gang of Four.” They told me this latest propaganda effort just proves China doesn’t get that this is a leaderless mvt mobilising anonymously online
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In the course of my reporting, I pondered: can you have rule of law without democracy? If you don't have a democratic system, how do you put political pressure on the government to enforce the law fairly? 15/
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Trump is using Hong Kong as a bargaining chip to try to get a favorable trade deal & told Xi at the G20 that the US would tone down its criticisms of Beijing’s tightening grip of HK. Read more in our
@FT
exclusive today by
@Dimi
& me
Donald Trump told Xi Jinping last month that the US would tone down criticism of Beijing’s approach to Hong Kong following massive protests in the territory in order to revive trade talks
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What is it like to live on China’s border with North Korea? We drove the length of one of the most sensitive borders in the world and found out how people on both sides connect with each other, by
@damirsagolj
and me via
@SpecialReports
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The problem is now that Beijing’s fundamental animus towards the common law and its belief in rule BY law rather than rule OF law is playing out in Hong Kong’s legal system 4/
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I became obsessed with the various smart prison systems on display. One rep told me prisoners’ garment output increased by 10-20% at a prison factory after they installed the company’s surveillance system. They also use “smart beds” to monitor prisoners’ health 6/
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One hundred years ago today, young Chinese protested on the streets of Beijing, in one of the most important events in modern Chinese history, which became known as the May 4 Movement. This week six students who seek inspiration from May 4 went missing
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I was shocked by the hidden cameras in the bridge of these glasses & the right side of the 中 character in this name tag. The booth rep told me it was old hardware & I was out of date about the latest tech developments & they can hide cameras in basically anything 7/
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Our full story here: China warns that the spread of the deadly coronavirus will accelerate - the virus is infectious for up to around 14 days during its incubation period (when ppl may show no symptoms), which was not the case with SARS in 2003
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Separate but related, the lack of accountability of HK’s police force is also a threat to the rule of law & is a huge driver in the escalating tensions in HK. Latest opinion polls show 51% of HKers now have zero trust in the police, compared to 6.5% before the protests began 8/
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Also, what kind of law does an 18 year old HKer study now, if they want to be a lawyer and will be at the height of their career in 2047 when HK’s current common law system may not exist? 16/
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Yellow masks are now one of the only visible signs of resistance to growing authoritarianism in Hong Kong. This week, I looked at the politics of yellow masks & why some in the pro-Beijing camp are calling them seditious with
@_jasmineleung_
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Delighted The Prince and our print coverage of Xi Jinping won two SOPAs for best podcast and explanatory reporting. Proud to be part of a huge team effort from
@TheEconomist
audio & China teams and
@1843mag
🏆
@TheEconomist
wins the Award for Excellence in Global Explanatory Reporting for "Xi Jinping: the making of a dictator." The reporting is detailed, the writing is authoritative, and the presentation totally engaging. Congratulations!
#SOPAwards2023
📰
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The sea of candlelight that illuminates Victoria Park each year may have been extinguished. Yet fireflies continue to flicker in the dark. 有一分热，发一分光，就令萤火一般，也可以在黑暗里发一点光，不必等候炬火。My story:
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Everything we’re currently witnessing is part of a broader trend of the erosion of the rule of law in HK and the encroachment of Beijing. My predecessor
@benjaminbland
wrote a sweeping piece documenting this at the end of last year 14/
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Delighted to be a part of a new book out today “The Beijing Bureau: 25 Australian correspondents reporting on China’s rise” published by
@HardieGrant
. It's a celebration of journalism, a history of China & Aus + a rollicking read (if I do say so myself):
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The Hong Kong Bar Association which represents the city's barristers hit back saying any statement from Beijing that might be seen as telling judges what to do could be an encroachment on the independence of the judiciary 7/
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After decades of flops, China has figured out how to blend propaganda & entertainment, creating a slew of patriotic blockbusters that cast the country's biggest celebrities and have the aesthetic of Hollywood hits. My latest with
@SiyuanMeng9
:
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A policing expert and party cadre from Xinjiang’s public security bureau told us they have started using emotion recognition to identity criminal suspects. He also said they work with major Chinese tech companies like Alibaba, Tencent, Hikvision & Dahua 2/
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“Macau matters more than its size conveys because Hong Kong ... can look at what Beijing wants its future to be by looking at what Macau has become. These are cascading social experiments.” My big read into why Macau & HK have taken such different paths
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I spent this morning at the Shenzhen Bay Sports Centre, just a few kilometres from the border of Hong Kong, listening to the sounds of boots stamping and the roars of thousands of Chinese paramilitary personnel reverberating around the complex
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Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s steely leader, needs Beijing’s approval to even resign. Our piece today looks at the woman who faces the almost impossible balancing act of reporting to Xi Jinping while also trying to represent the people of HK. By
@tmitchpk
& me
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Scientists I've interviewed over the past few days told me one big unknown about the virus was its incubation period & how that would impact its spread, particularly over the lunar new year. China's health commission now saying we can expect the spread of the virus to accelerate
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Spectators - a lot from mainland China - looking on at the protests. A lot of the mainland traders I spoke to said they thought the protesters were paid by the US to march & thought Hong Kongers were very ungrateful - “they’d have no food to eat or water to drink without us!”
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The rule of law encompasses many things inc an independent judiciary, separation of powers, effective restraint on government power and equality before the law. HK’s rule of law is ranked among the best in the world but … 2/
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