Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. In 2014, China announced plans to establish a comprehensive nationwide “social credit” system by 2020, with the aim of using troves of data to assess the trustworthiness of individuals, businesses and other entities based on their compliance with laws and other regulations. The idea has been called “Orwellian” by United States Vice President Mike Pence, and media outlets have likened it to an episode of Black Mirror, the popular dystopian television series. Aspects of the social credit system certainly [...]
Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. Hong Kong’s government introduced revised extradition legislation last Wednesday, going ahead with plans to ease the handover of fugitives to jurisdictions that it does not have extradition treaties with, including China, Taiwan and Macau. Human rights groups and lawyers’ associations in Hong Kong have protested the move, saying that Beijing could use extradition as a weapon against political dissidents or anyone else its justice system deems criminal. Mainland China was deliberately excluded from Hong Kong’s 1997 extradition law, passed [...]
Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern completed a quick visit to Beijing on Monday, her first trip to China since becoming prime minister in 2017. Ardern was originally expected to tour the country over the course of a week, accompanied by a business delegation, with plans to stop in several Chinese cities. But an emerging rift between the two countries delayed that trip, and the mass shooting last month in Christchurch prompted Ardern to shorten her stay to one [...]
