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Resident tells of days filled with health codes, constant threat of shutdowns and moments of hope
Life in Beijing these days is spent either in lockdown or preparing for lockdown. Stockpiling food at home, just in case, has become the new norm. Meeting friends is hard because every few weeks one of us is sealed inside their home for days. Carrying out the daily routine of only working, eating and sleeping has become interminably boring and there are the complicated new technologies and rules we have to navigate.
The health code dominates every aspect of our lives here. Because the results of my mandatory Covid test, taken every 48 hours, are connected to my public transport pass, I don’t have to use my health code to get into the subway station. But when I arrive at the gate outside my work building, I have to show my scan result to the guard. The young man in uniform gives me a slight nod, his facial expression hidden under the mask. A smattering of cars run through the bright gingko tree-lined streets.

Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock is releasing a trio of ads aimed at getting Asian Americans to the polls ahead of the Dec. 6 runoff election in Georgia.

The nushu system, still practised in China, reveals a long history of women’s frustrations and the solace this art provides
Nushu is a traditional secret writing system used by women in Jiangyong county in China’s Hunan province: slender, diamond-shaped characters they used to vent their frustrations and record their inner lives. This haunting but slyly subversive documentary about three present-day nushu specialists uses the practice to examine women’s changing roles in a China modernising at breakneck speed – though the forces of resistance are evident in the numerous episodes of impressive mansplaining surrounding this female preserve.
A prize-winning nushu expert working at a Jiangyoung museum, Hu Xin frets about how the essence of the art is being watered down in dance-based presentations demanded by tourists. She believes it deals at heart in “misery” – and so looks up to wizened calligrapher He Yanxin, who raised her four children solo, as her inspiration. Hu has left her violent husband, but despite her high status in nushu, deems her own family-less existence a failure. Meanwhile, soprano singer and fellow nushu fanatic Wu Simu is preparing for marriage, but an uneasy look comes into her eye when her fiance dismisses her passion as a “hobby”.

Insulated from political pressure and public opinion, Chinese President Xi Jinping stuck with ‘zero Covid’ for too long.

Insulated from political pressure and public opinion, Chinese President Xi Jinping stuck with ‘zero Covid’ for too long.

Asian shares were mostly higher on Wednesday, Investors were also eyeing developments in China, where protests have erupted over the “zero-COVID” strategy that has confined millions of people to their ...

"The growing Asian business community in Austin has played a critical role in making our region the economic powerhouse it is today," stated Fang Fang, president and CEO of the Greater Austin Asian ...

A bill to halt the government’s purchase of Chinese-made drones is being stalled by demands for a carve-out for the intelligence community, sources said of discussions with the House Intelligence ...

We are raiding the Audio Long Read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors
This week, from 2019: Smartphones and the internet gave the Uighurs a sense of their own identity – but now the Chinese state is using technology to strip them of it

After decades of military secrecy, Chinese officials opened their desert rocket launch center to a handful of visitors and called for international cooperation in space.

The states of East Asia, other than North Korea and the Philippines, have experienced extraordinary economic growth since World War II. Japan led the way in the 1950s and 1960s, followed by a range of ...

China has been rocked by an outpouring of communal anger at the government’s restrictive ‘zero Covid’ lockdown policies. Could the protests develop into something more substantial? Tania Branigan reports
The largest protests in a generation have erupted in cities across China against the government’s harsh Covid restrictions and also, in some cases, the president himself, Xi Jinping. The most widely used symbol in the demonstrations has been a blank sheet of paper, symbolising the censorship all those within China face.
The Guardian’s Tania Branigan tells Michael Safi that while this may not be a revolutionary moment in China, it is hugely significant. China has struck out alone in attempting to keep Covid cases to an absolute minimum, regardless of the restrictions needed. But what has surprised many onlookers is the fact that the authorities have not used the time to implement a widescale vaccine policy that could help the country get back to normality. Instead, China appears caught in a trap of its own devising – and there is no easy route out of it.