For Your Weekend, August 25, 2022

on August 25, 2022

This weekend, we recommend this superb exploration of Chinese documentary film winning awards at fake documentary film festivals, from our friends at China Media Project.

In this short interview, climate expert (and our Asia Society colleague) Thom Woodroofe discusses how the cancellation of U.S.-China climate talks following Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan will affect global efforts to combat climate change.

China Digital Times offers a glimpse of the ways Chinese citizens are expressing their feelings about COVID and COVID-control policies. In this oblique commentary, an artist spray-painted one character on each of eight COVID testing stations, which reveal this message when viewed together on a map: “It’s been three years, I’m already numb.”

China’s Role in Sri Lanka’s Debt Crisis

A China in the World Podcast

By Paul Haenle & Anushka Wijesinha on August 18, 2022

In this episode of the China in the World podcast, Paul Haenle speaks with Anushka Wijesinha about the ongoing political and economic crisis in Sri Lanka. The discussion covers the domestic and international causes of Sri Lanka’s debt crisis, Beijing’s role in the Sri Lankan economy, and the path forward for debt restructuring negotiations between Colombo and Beijing. The two also touch on the broader impact of China’s development financing in the global south in the context of rising inflation and interest rates around the world.

Hong Kong from the Inside

By Ian Johnson on August 18, 2022

In November 2019, some one thousand young pro-democracy protesters occupied the campus of Hong Kong’s Polytechnic University, which is located at a crucial junction of two highways and the cross-harbor tunnel. They disrupted traffic for more than a week, trying to pressure the government to investigate police misconduct during large-scale protests earlier in the year. On November 17, they repulsed police efforts to storm the campus. The police threatened to use live ammunition but decided to starve them out instead.

Anushka Wijesinha

on August 17, 2022

Anushka Wijesinha is a Sri Lankan economist and international consultant. He has worked at the World Bank, International Trade Center, ADB, and UNCTAD. He is the co-founder of Centre for a Smart Future, an Asia-based think tank. He also serves on the Board of Directors of three leading financial services companies, Seylan Bank PLC, FairFirst Insurance Ltd, and HNB Finance PLC.

Brian Haman

on August 16, 2022

Brian Haman completed his Ph.D. and M.A. at the University of Warwick (UK). He is currently a researcher and lecturer at the University of Vienna as well as the co-editor of The Shanghai Literary Review. Along with Burmese poet Ko Ko Thett, he co-edited Picking Off New Shoots Will Not Stop the Spring, Myanmar’s first literary work since the 2021 coup. He is also a co-editor of the forthcoming anthology Yet Unspoken is Forgotten. A Bilingual Anthology of Chinese Poetry by Women Translators (Balestier Press).

Hong Kong Type

An Interview with Author Dung Kai-cheung

By Wong Yi on August 15, 2022

Over the past few years, readers, writers, and publishers in Hong Kong have become interested in the city’s history. New books about colonial figures, societal events, and relics not covered in textbooks have proliferated, dominating independent bookshops’ sales lists. Newly discovered colonial monuments and old buildings slated for demolition, such as the Ex-Sham Shui Po Service Reservoir and Wan Chai’s Fenwick Pier, which witnessed the arrival of foreign navies, also have attracted visitors interested in recording the bygone face of Hong Kong in the form of photographs, words, drawings, and paintings. Amid numerous unprecedented changes, in recent years Hongkongers have acquired a fresh curiosity about where Hong Kong came from, what it used to be like, and how its journey has unfolded.

For Your Weekend, August 11, 2022

on August 10, 2022

The most recent episode of the Sinica Podcast, with former U.S. intelligence officer John Culver, was recorded last week before Beijing’s military exercises in the wake of Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. But it’s an invaluable resource on both the historical context of the visit and on the range of possible directions its aftermath could take.

The Substack Ginger River has translated Xinhua’s readout of Xi Jinping’s recent inspection tour of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The translation gives a sense of how Chinese authorities are framing the trip, and the notes provided by the translator(s) help fill in any gaps for a reader not familiar with the CCP jargon related to the region.

Carnegie’s Indian Ocean Initiative recently released an interactive map, “The Strategic Importance of the Indian Ocean.” The map allows you to zoom in on chokepoints, disputed territories, and maritime boundaries, providing background information on key issues in the region.

The Strategic Importance of the Indo-Pacific

A China in the World Podcast

By Paul Haenle & Darshana M. Baruah on August 10, 2022

Spanning from East Africa to the West Coast of the United States, the Indo-Pacific is a complex region encompassing two oceans and countless islands and maritime powers. In this episode of the China in the World podcast, Paul Haenle speaks with Darshana Baruah about her research on maritime security in Asia as well as recent developments in the Indo-Pacific. The interview covers Baruah’s key takeaways from the Shangri-La Dialogue, shifting geopolitical dynamics in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Islands, and new trends in India’s foreign policy.

The Major Questions About China’s Foreign NGO Law Are Now Settled

And so Farewell from The China NGO Project

on August 8, 2022

Five years after its first post, The China NGO Project is closing up shop. When we began in 2017, we hoped to help international nonprofits working in China make sense of the new legal regime they found themselves under after the passage of China’s Foreign NGO Law. We faced many of the same challenges as the community as a whole: a lack of detailed official information, difficulty finding candid interlocutors, and a seemingly unresolvable tension between open information sharing and the perceived need for caution and discretion.