Author: Joanne Serrieh

Arrest of China’s top banker for graft reveals rampant corruption in CCP
31Aug By Joanne SerriehNo Comments
Business, China

Arrest of China’s top banker for graft reveals rampant corruption in CCP

The chairman of China Huarong Asset Management, one of China's top bankers, who also served as the Communist Party chief inside the company, Lai Xiaomin has been arrested for taking USD 256 million in cash and gifts. His arrest has revealed the rampant corruption in the government. According to media reports, he was accused of exploiting various professional positions and accepting ill-gotten gains, including money and goods worth 1.79 billion yuan, of which 104 million yuan was eventually not received, between 2008 and 2018, when he headed Hong Kong-listed China Huarong Asset Management and was the director-general of the People's Bank of China's banking supervision department. He is also accused of embezzling public assets worth more than 25.13 million yuan between 2009 and 2018. Meanwh...
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China’s expansionist policies irks Russia; Moscow issues warning
28Aug By Joanne SerriehNo Comments
China

China’s expansionist policies irks Russia; Moscow issues warning

Irked by China’s aggressive expansionist policies, Russia has issued a warning to the former saying that it will perceive any ballistic missile launched at its territory as a nuclear attack that warrants a nuclear retaliation.Experts believe this reaction is a result of China eating into Russia’s sphere of influence. Beijing’s political and economic rise has irked Moscow at many levels. While others believe that this warning was aimed at Moscow’s rival - the United States.According to reports, the harsh warning came in the official military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star).China’s attempts to undermine Russian influence in the Arctic and Central Asia and its claims in the Russian Far East strongly has angered the Vladimir Putin administration. Russia had also accused China of copying i
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China wants to rebuild countryside but first must demolish homes
26Aug By Joanne SerriehNo Comments
China

China wants to rebuild countryside but first must demolish homes

Over the last several decades, China's population has shifted to cities as its economy expanded. However, more than 40 per cent of its people still continue to live in its countryside. And now, China's Communist Party wants to modernize rural villages by rebuilding them completely.An ordinary farmer from Shandong province along China's east coast, Mr. Liu, witnessed his home in a village near the city of Heze being demolished in January this year.“To demolish my home, about 100 security officers surrounded and subdued me and detained me,” he said.He then called the police. They beat and detained him. Mr Liu has asked to use only his last name because he fears local officials could physically hurt him again.Mr. Liu's village is one of thousands being torn down as China's countryside undergo
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Beijing’s actions along LAC jeopardised Indo-China relations: Chinese dissident
22Aug By Joanne SerriehNo Comments
China

Beijing’s actions along LAC jeopardised Indo-China relations: Chinese dissident

Chinese dissident and son of a former Communist Party leader, Jianli Yang has stated that Beijing’s recent actions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) have severely jeopardised the cordial relationship that India and China had built over the past years.“The cordial relationship that India and China had built consequent to summit meetings between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Wuhan in 2018 and Mamallapuram in 2019 has been jeopardised due to China’s actions along the Line of Actual Control,” said Jianli, who is also the founder and president of Citizen Power Initiatives for China.“In its anxiousness to appear strong, China revealed its ugly, untrustworthy side to India. In response, India adopted a string of measures in various spheres–diplomacy,
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Hong Kong police arrest four members of Hong Kong pro-independence group
17Aug By Joanne SerriehNo Comments
China

Hong Kong police arrest four members of Hong Kong pro-independence group

With Beijing’s draconian national security law in power, Hong Kong’s new police unit arrested four student members of a pro-independence group, aged 16 to 21 in a first ever crackdown on anti-government activists.Senior Superintendent Steve Li Kwai-wah of the National Security Department under the police force said the group had declared the establishment of a body to promote pro-independence political ideals “using any means possible” and build a “Republic of Hong Kong”.Studentlocalism was a pro-independence group that was disbanded on June 30, hours before the Beijing-imposed national security law came into effect.The national security law, which came into effect ahead of July 1, sets up a vast security apparatus in the territory and gives Beijing broad powers to crack down on a variety
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US sanctions could prove devastating for Chinese Communist leaders
14Aug By Joanne SerriehNo Comments
China

US sanctions could prove devastating for Chinese Communist leaders

The Communist Party of China has amassed around $10 trillion across different countries through money laundering, misinvoicing and various other illicit means in the past two-and-a-half decades, however, it will be doomed following Washington's sanctions on CCP leaders, a New York-based online paper, Vision Times has claimed.The assertion comes in wake of US Department of Treasury's announcement of sanctioning of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) Public Security Bureau and four CCP officials under The Global Magnitsky Act for involvement in serious human rights abuses against ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.As per the data and statistics, the online newspaper on its Youtube channel has said that the CCP Communist Party of China has amassed around $10 trillion across different coun...
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China collecting DNA samples of millions, experts suspect developing tool for genetic surveillance
11Aug By Joanne SerriehNo Comments
China, Opinion

China collecting DNA samples of millions, experts suspect developing tool for genetic surveillance

In an alleged bid to create a new tool for their emerging high-tech surveillance, Chinese authorities have been collecting DNA samples from across the country to develop a massive genetic database.In an opinion piece, Emile Dirks, a PhD student in Political Science at the University of Toronto, and James Leibold, an expert on ethnic issues in modern China, say dissent is a crime in China and police operations are a key part of the state’s apparatus of repression.They estimated that the authorities’ goal is to gather the DNA samples of 35 million to 70 million Chinese males.“Matched against official family records, surveillance footage or witness statements in police reports, these samples will become a powerful tool for the Chinese authorities to track down a man or boy -- or, failing that
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China’s disregard for international water laws lead to worsening of ties with countries in South China Sea
4Aug By Joanne SerriehNo Comments
China

China’s disregard for international water laws lead to worsening of ties with countries in South China Sea

China’s brazen disregard for international water laws has finally severed its ties with neighboring countries in the South China Sea. The Philippines has publicly called on China to comply with the 2016 arbitral ruling which had ruled that China has no “historic rights over the waters of the South China Sea”.“Compliance in good faith with the award would be consistent with the obligations of the Philippines and China under international law, including UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) to which both parties are signatories,” Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. said in a statement.Indonesia has also decided to conduct exercises in the vicinity of the Riau Islands.Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo rejected China’s claims of having “historical rights” in the
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Behind China’s wild claims to Bhutan Sanctuary bordering India, a Doklam link
31Jul By Joanne SerriehNo Comments
China

Behind China’s wild claims to Bhutan Sanctuary bordering India, a Doklam link

By introducing a new territory in the border dispute between Bhutan and China, the latter appears to be making a renewed push to make the former cede the strategically located Doklam and its adjoining areas.The freshly minted Chinese claims on the Sakteng sanctuary, close to Bhutan’s eastern border with Arunachal Pradesh were made in June.Doklam can be traced back to a 73-day standoff between Indian and Chinese troops after Indian troops stopped the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) from constructing a motorable road close to the Sikkim-Bhutan-Tibet tri-junction.The road towards Jampheri Ridge would have enabled the Chinese to overlook the vulnerable Siliguri corridor or the ‘Chicken’s Neck’ area that connects the Indian mainland with its north-eastern states.Since 1984, 24 rounds of boundary
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Covid-19 pandemic: Uighurs forced to produce face masks in China
28Jul By Joanne SerriehNo Comments
China

Covid-19 pandemic: Uighurs forced to produce face masks in China

A recent investigation has revealed that some Chinese companies are using Uighur labor to manufacture personal protective equipment for Covid-19 under a contentious government-sponsored program that experts say often puts people to work against their will.Uighurs are a largely Muslim ethnic minority from the Xinjiang region of northwest China. The program sends Uighurs and other ethnic minorities into factory and service jobs, and their labor is part of the P.P.E. supply chain.According to China’s National Medical Products Administration, only four companies in Xinjiang produced medical grade protective equipment before the pandemic. As of June 30, that number was 51. State media reports and public records show that at least 17 of those companies participate in the labor transfer program.T
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