Women’s tennis takes a stand against China

 Will any other sport dare follow?

ChinaDec 4th 2021 edition   The Economist

In the world of sport, it was a remarkable rebuke of China’s ruling Communist Party. On December 1st the Florida-based Women’s Tennis Association (wta) said it would stop holding tournaments in mainland China and Hong Kong in response to the silencing of Peng Shuai, a Chinese tennis star, after she had publicly accused a former senior Chinese leader of sexual assault. 

Steve Simon, the wta’s boss, used language typical of human-rights groups, not of firms with profits at stake. He accused China’s leadership of failing to handle the matter credibly: “I have serious doubts that she is free, safe and not subject to censorship, coercion and intimidation.”

For years most executives of global sporting leagues, as well as athletes with high profiles in China, have strained to avoid offending Chinese officials lest they lose access to a lucrative market. But as China’s human-rights abuses have become more egregious, the reputational risk of keeping quiet has grown. 

In November the International Olympic Committee held a video call with Ms Peng and gave a sunny assessment of her well-being. It was widely viewed as a craven effort to help China stifle controversy in the buildup to the Winter Olympics in Beijing in February. 

America’s National Basketball Association (nba) has tried to keep on China’s good side since a team executive’s tweet in 2019, expressing support for protests in Hong Kong, prompted a temporary ban in China on nba broadcasts. Adam Silver, the nba’s chief, said the episode cost the league hundreds of millions of dollars.

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China says it is more democratic than America

 Western dysfunction tempts the Communist Party to make risky boasts

ChinaDec 4th 2021 edition  The Economist

The leaders of China’s Communist Party have spent a long time waiting for liberal democracy to look as fragile as it does today. Now, filled with scorn for a dysfunctional West, they think that their moment has come. Angered, specifically, by President Joe Biden’s summoning of over 100 countries to a virtual Summit for Democracy on December 9th and 10th—including Taiwan, an island that China claims as its territory—China is responding with fighting talk. 

Officials are seizing every chance to explain why their always-controlling, sometimes-ruthless political system is not just a good fit for a large country trying to become prosperous and strong: the party’s defensive line for four decades. Increasingly, they are on the offensive. They insist that China’s political model is so effective, and so responsive to the people’s wishes, that it is more perfectly democratic than America’s.

In the words of a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, American democracy is in a “disastrous state”, calling into doubt that country’s legitimacy as host of such a summit. In a video call, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, commiserated with his counterpart from Hungary, whose increasingly autocratic government is also not invited. Mr Wang condemned America for excluding some countries, adding that the yardstick of a democracy should be whether a government “meets the people’s needs, and gives them enough of a sense of participation, satisfaction and gain”.

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China bans an independent think-tank critical of its policies

 Unirule had been an unusually vocal proponent of free-market economics

The Economist

ChinaAug 31st 2019 edition

Aug 29th 2019

SHANGHAI

For researchers devoted to the rule of law, the end was fitting. Drawing on patchwork regulations that appear to violate the Chinese constitution, local authorities in Beijing at last found a pretext to ban the Unirule Institute of Economics, that rarest of things in China, an independent think-tank known for criticising the government. For years Unirule had faced pressure, including evictions from multiple offices, to quiet down, and yet had managed to go on functioning. But it saw no way around the ban, issued last month, and so on August 26th announced that it would stop all activities.

Founded in 1993, Unirule always resided on the fringes of Chinese policy discussions, bringing together a collection of liberal economists who were strong believers in free markets. It published a series of books about institutional reform, including on how to slim down state-owned firms. It delved into topics such as the design of China’s health-care system and land-ownership rules. It also convened forums every two weeks; its last, the 600th, was a theoretical discussion about network effects in economics. A steady stream of eminent economists and senior officials came through Unirule’s doors over the years, eager to hear its perspectives, so different from those propagated by right-thinking state-affiliated institutions.

https://www.economist.com/china/2019/08/29/china-bans-an-independent-think-tank-critical-of-its-policies

China still steals commercial secrets for its own firms’ profit

Despite saying it wouldn’t engage in cybertheft, it is ramping up its efforts

The Economist

Nov 11th 2021

Earlier this year Microsoft found that a group of hackers, which it called Hafnium, had broken into hundreds of thousands of computer servers around the world that were running the firm’s mail and calendar software. The cyber-thieves were stealing emails, documents and other data from small businesses, NGOs and local governments in an enormous, seemingly indiscriminate, cyber-attack. In July America, Britain, other members of  NATO and the European Union all blamed China. America was more specific. It named China’s civilian intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security (MSS).

Such co-ordinated condemnation of the Chinese government for allegedly hacking into foreign computer systems was unprecedented. But it was no surprise in the West that China appeared to be responsible (as always in such cases, it denied involvement).

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