News

An American’s view of life in China during the tumultuous Covid years
When , the celebrated chronicler of Chinese society, arrived at Sichuan University in the autumn of 2019, he was expecting to take a break from writing. Hessler made his name as a journalist documenting the lives of everyday people during China’s boom years in the early 2000s. But he first got to know the country as a Peace Corps volunteer in rural Sichuan in the mid-1990s – an experience that formed the basis of his first book, , a bestseller that introduced a generation of readers to a rapidly changing China. Nearly a quarter of a century on, he had planned to focus his energies on teaching.
But events were about to blow him off course. Ninety-five days after Hessler’s first lecture in Chengdu, a cluster of patients with pneumonia-like symptoms appeared in Wuhan, the capital of nearby Hubei province. Forty-seven days after that, Chengdu went into lockdown. Within two months, more than a dozen reporters working for US outlets had been expelled from China. Though not technically a correspondent, Hessler found himself one of the only western writers able to describe what life was like on the ground during one of the most extraordinary periods in China’s recent history.

Alice Guo, a mayor with alleged links to China, denies any wrongdoing amid human trafficking investigation sparked by raid on compound in her town
The controversy surrounding wanted Filipino mayor Alice Guo has taken another dramatic turn, with government officials alleging that she fled the Philippines in July.
Guo was mayor of the town of Bamban in Tarlac province and is at the centre of a mystery that began in March when officials a compound in the town and found about 1,000 workers, including victims of human trafficking, along with luxury villas, high-end cars, and expensive cognac.

Unscripted remarks about the Japanese-administered islands were made during during a Chinese-language programme on the public broadcaster NHK
’s public broadcaster, NHK, has apologised after a member of staff referred to the disputed as “Chinese territory” during an internationally broadcast radio programme this week.
The presenter, a Chinese national in his 40s, made the unscripted remarks for about 20 seconds during a Chinese-language broadcast on Monday on the NHK World-Japan and Radio 2 channels, according to the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper.

President Joe Biden approved in March a highly classified nuclear strategic plan for the United States that, for the first time, reorients America’s deterrent strategy to focus on China’s rapid ...

Su Min became an internet sensation for leaving behind an abusive husband to drive across China alone. Now she’s ending the marriage, but there will be a price.

Nearly two dozen works of seven artists are featured in the newest exhibit at Pendleton Center for the Arts, “Contemporary Asian and Asian American Art: From the Collections ...

A flood of Chinese products into Indonesia has hit local manufacturers hard, prompting the government to look for ways to placate domestic producers while avoiding angering the country's biggest tradi ...

One in four people will experience mental illness during their lifetime, according to the World Health Organization. This statistic is troubling, given that mental illness is a leading cause of ...

There's an important shift in the electorate this campaign season: Asian Americans are the fastest-growing group of U.S. voters and may well represent the quintessential swing voter. Campaigns can't ...

Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval, the city's first Asian American mayor, is speaking at the DNC. We're waiting to when and what he'll talk about.

Black Myth: Wukong tried to forbid influential overseas streamers from discussing “feminist propaganda,” Covid-19 and China’s video game industry policies.

The 9% tariff is much less than others face after investigation into Beijing’s ‘unfair’ subsidies of EVs
Tesla will face a 9% levy on its Chinese-made cars exported to the EU, the European Commission has said, as it issued an update on into Beijing’s “unfair” subsidies of electric vehicles.
The tariff on Tesla – far lower than the 21.3% average on companies that cooperated with the EU investigation and 36.3% on those that did not – came after the California-headquartered firm requested individual treatment as part of the wider Brussels inquiry.