Relative silence still from Chinese media on Ukraine. Only terse statements so far acknowledging the invasion. Top story on People's Daily is still about monetary policy. Xinhua's top story is about how Xi's diplomacy during Winter Olympics signals future cooperation. China’s embassy in Ukraine urged Chinese nationals & businesses to stay at home and advised those traveling by car to affix a Chinese flag in a prominent place on the vehicle. The embassy stopped short of telling Chinese nationals to evacuate.

Thomas Bach, president of IOC, says Peng Shuai, the Chinese tennis player and Olympian who accused a top Chinese party leader of sexual assault, will enter the Olympic closed loop for a meeting. He doesn’t specify when. Bach, when pressed on Peng Shuai, gives a meandering answer. Said they focused first on the question "Where is Peng Shuai?" Then: "If she wants to have an inquiry of course we will also support her in this, but it must be her decision, it is her life, it is her allegations."

Back in Beijing to cover the Winter Olympics, almost two years after we were expelled. Surreal to be back but sad I can’t truly experience a city that I called home for so long. We are stuck inside the bubble; not allowed to see friends or eat at our favorite restaurants.

https://twitter.com/amyyqin/status/1240009075913396224

Glimpses of the city’s humanity are still peeking thru. The kindly airport worker w/the thick Beijing accent; the taxi driver who volunteered to work in the bubble tho it meant being away from family for 2 months. “The money isn’t great but I thought it would be fun,” he told us.

For the CCP, even grief is a potential threat to stability that needs to be controlled. In Wuhan, officials are pushing families to bury the dead quickly & quietly, to forget & move on. But many are fighting to preserve the memory of their loved ones. 1/ nytimes.com/2020/04/03/wor… Officials sent minders to follow Liu Pei'en as he picked a burial plot & collected his father's ashes. They took photos during the burial. “My father devoted his whole life to serving the country and the party...Only to be surveilled after his death," Liu told @wywapple. 2/

Just arrived in Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, which has been under lockdown for more than a week now. The mood among locals: anxiety, flashes of anger & frustration, and extreme boredom. Here I am getting my temperature measured in a hotel lobby. With their Chinese New Year food supplies running low, many residents were venturing out today to stock up on groceries. The markets we saw had an abundance of fresh vegetables, rice, oil and fruit — even strawberries on sale.

As China built up a vast network of internment camps for Muslims, it oversaw a parallel effort to corral Uighur children into boarding schools. The aim? To indoctrinate a new generation of Uighurs who are secular and more loyal to the party and the nation. nytimes.com/2019/12/28/wor… 2/China says the children in these schools are thriving. They get free tuition, food & clothes. They are learning about science and Chinese – aka skills for the future. But growing evidence suggests that the govt’s motivations may not be so altruistic. (Photo taken in Hotan)

"Half the sky" no longer. I wrote about how from the womb to the workplace, from politics to the home, women in China are losing ground at every turn. “When it came to promoting women’s rights, China used to be in the lead. But now we are falling behind."
nytimes.com/2019/07/16/wor… Agreements promising not to get pregnant on the job. Employers denying maternity leave, re-assigning or demoting pregnant women and asking women about their marital and childbearing status in interviews. These have become the norm in Xi Jinping's China. 2/

When @HernandezJavier first started thinking about this story earlier this year, we began with the question: How is China both the most dynamic & repressed place in the world? (1/10)
nytimes.com/interactive/20… The question grew out of a realization that one of the West's fundamental assumptions -- that as China grew richer, political freedoms would follow -- was flawed. (2/10)