Latest: @Horror_Zoo has been living in Australia since 2019, where she attended quite a few protests supporting #HongKong's pro-democracy movement and she also organized several anti-government rallies. She thought she'd be relatively safe from #Beijing's surveillance, ...
... but at the end of April, she received a call from her father on WeChat, and when she picked up, she realized her father was at the local police station in Hefei City, Anhuei province. A local policeman surnamed Hu took over the phone and began to question her about ...
... a @Twitter account that has been posting content mocking the Chinese president #XiJinping. The police man demanded that she handed in the login credentials of the Twitter account and asked her to return to #China immediately.
Instead of giving in to pressure from home, she decided to publicize the video of their exchanges, knowing this might increase the risk against her and her family back in #China. She shared her experience during the annual online commemoration event for #JuneFourth, ...
... and hours after the event, the local police screenshot the speech she gave during the event and shared it with her father. Her father began to pressure her to return to #China as well, which made her feel like the power of the government has gotten in the way between her ...
... and her family. She decided to reveal all details of the surveillance and threats that she's been receiving from her hometown in #China, hoping the international community will see the real capability of #Beijing's surveillance state.
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United States President Joe Biden on Friday (Dec 20) approved US$571.3 million in defence assistance for #Taiwan, the White House said, as the Democrat prepares to leave office ahead of the January inauguration of Donald Trump.
In a brief statement, the White House said Biden had authorised his secretary of state to "direct the drawdown of up to US$571.3 million in defence articles and services of the Department of Defense, and military education and training, to provide assistance to Taiwan".
The statement did not provide details of the military assistance package, which comes less than three months after a similar package worth US$567 million was authorised.
My latest: #China has sent officials to the Russian central bank to study the effects of Western sanctions for a better understanding of how it would be affected if it were to invade Taiwan.
Beijing had already set up a task force months after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, which was tasked with producing reports about the impacts of Western sanctions on the Russian economy.
China is “very interested” in “practically everything” about the sanctions, including potentially positive effects on domestic production, a person with knowledge of the specialist task force told the Wall Street Journal.
A Beijing court sentenced veteran Chinese state media journalist Dong Yuyu on Friday to seven years in prison for espionage, a family member told Reuters.
Former Guangming Daily editor and journalist Dong Yuyu, 62, was detained by police in Beijing in February 2022 while having lunch with a Japanese diplomat, according to a statement from the US National Press Club, and later charged with espionage.
There was a heavy police presence outside Beijing’s No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court, with at least seven police cars parked nearby. Reuters journalists were asked to leave the area.
Australia and the Philippines said their militaries would conduct a joint maritime activity with Japan, New Zealand and the United States in the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines, which covers one of Asia's most sensitive sites. channelnewsasia.com/asia/philippin…
"The Maritime Cooperative Activity demonstrates our collective commitment to strengthen regional and international cooperation in support of a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific," Australia's Department of Defence said.
The joint exercise comes after a series of air and sea encounters between the Philippines and China, which have sparred over disputed areas of the South China Sea, including the Scarborough Shoal, one of Asia's most contested features.
My latest: As #China and Russia look to deepen cooperation in the Arctic, analysts cite concern about increasing geopolitical competition in the region, forcing countries to think more about how to respond to potential threats.
Following a meeting between Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin in Moscow on August 21, China released an expansive communique outlining ways the two countries are boosting cooperation.
On the Arctic, Beijing and Moscow pledged to strengthen cooperation in areas including shipping development, navigation safety, polar ship technology and construction.
The EU is expected to notify #China that it will impose tariffs on electric vehicle imports this week, firing the starting gun on a potential summer trade war with Beijing. theguardian.com/business/artic…
A formal pre-disclosure of tariffs could happen as early as Wednesday, after a lengthy investigation into China’s state subsidies for its car manufacturing, which is predicted to conclude that massive support continues to be concentrated on the EV sector.
Chinese manufacturers are already bracing themselves for new import duties, but experts anticipate that Beijing will retaliate with countermeasures that could hit a range of EU exports to the country, ranging from cognac to dairy products.