Published: February 29, 2024

China may also choose to support its food security needs through increased outbound investment in farmland. Indeed, it is happening in America though it‘s not clear to what extent or if it should be a concern. But this isn‘t stopping U. S. state governments and think tanks from piling on by designing measures to address this new ag flashpoint. One thing is certain, should any of these invested farmlands occur near military facilities, it will catch the attention of the U.S. federal government as well. All this current attention on Chinese farmland investment south of the border, may nudge western Canadians to recall that this issue popped up a decade ago. 

U.S. lawmakers are raising alarms about what they see as America‘s failure to compete with China in biotechnology, warning of the risks to U.S. national security and commercial interests. But as the two countries‘ rivalry expands into the biotech industry, some say that shutting out Chinese companies would only hurt the U.S.

Biotechnology promises to revolutionize everyday life, with scientists and researchers using it to make rapid advances in medical treatment, genetic engineering in agriculture and novel biomaterials. Because of its potential, it has caught the attention of both the Chinese and U.S. governments.

Beijing said the move sent the "wrong message" and effectively gave a "green light to the continued slaughter".
The White House said the Algerian-proposed resolution would "jeopardise" talks to end the war.
The US has proposed its own temporary ceasefire resolution, which also warned Israel not to invade the city of Rafah. Algeria's resolution was backed by 13 of the 15 members of the UN Security Council - with the UK abstaining.

Published: February 21, 2024
Video by: AP production by Javier Arciga

China plans to send a new pair of giant pandas to the San Diego Zoo, renewing its longstanding gesture of friendship toward the United States after nearly all the iconic animals on loan to U.S. zoos were returned as relations began to sour between the two nations

A practice that dates back as far as the Tang Dynasty, which ruled from 618 through 907 CE, panda diplomacy – or sending pandas as diplomatic gifts – appears to be in play once again in 2024. Last week, the China Wildlife Conservation Association announced that it has finalised agreements to loan some of China's beloved giant pandas to zoos in Spain and the United States, according to Xinhua News Agency, China's official news organization.

China called on the states with the largest nuclear arsenals to agree on an agreement on "no-first-use of nuclear weapons against each other," reports Reuters.

Director General of the Arms Control Department of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sun Xiaobo, called on the nuclear powers to fulfill their "special and priority responsibilities" regarding nuclear disarmament according to the UN Convention, within the framework of the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.

Published: March 1st, 2024
Written by: Eric Toussaint

China has been demonized by several commentators: it is said to be the main creditor of many countries of the South and to get the best of them through ruthless exploitation, whereas the World Bank, the IMF, and the Paris Club, which comprise the traditional creditor powers, are supposed to do their best to help countries burdened by too much debt.

China‘s coming of age as a major lender radically altered the balance of power among creditors. Until the start of the decade of 2010, if there was an agreement between the IMF, the World Bank and the Paris Club, it was difficult for any poor country of which they were the main creditors to find any source of alternative financing, and no government of the Global South except for Cuba‘s had the courage to suspend repayment unilaterally.

At the time of the announcement, Chinese President Xi Jinping didn't specify the year in which he expected his country's emissions to peak. But analysts from the Finnish think-tank Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air projected in a report that 2024 could be the year emissions in China start to fall. If that happens, it could be considered a huge win for the climate. 

China emits roughly one-third of the world's carbon dioxide, according to the IEA. But a record expansion of renewable energy — particularly solar and wind — along with a doubling of the production of EV batteries and lower demand for concrete and steel in 2023 "all but guarantee a decline in China's CO2 emissions in 2024," Myllyvirta says in his report.

Published: February 24, 2024
Written by: Michelle De Pacina

Comedian Shane Gillis, who is set to host “Saturday Night Live” on Feb. 24, is under pressure from Asian American advocacy groups demanding an apology and donations for his past racist remarks that led to his dismissal from the show in 2019.

“Shane getting tapped to host is bad timing, considering the Asian community has been devastated by a wave of hate that started during the COVID-19 pandemic. People in the community don‘t need to be reminded of the type of rhetoric that caused that trend,” Jo-Ann Yoo, the executive director of the Asian American Federation, told TMZ.

“Asian Americans are not the punchline of a joke. While these jokes may result in cheap laughs, they also result in real-world, deadly consequences for Asian Americans,” added TAAF CEO Norman Chen, who hopes Gillis will issue a “genuine” apology on the comedy show.

Deadline: June 13, 2024

Between 2021 and 2023, ACLS engaged in a series of strategic planning activities bringing together more than 100 scholars, administrators, journalists, librarians, curators, artists, and readers of research and writing on China through steering committees, focus groups, institutes, and more. In response to the challenges identified in these consultations, ACLS is offering a new collaborative grant for innovative pilot activities that initiate long-term transformative change in the field of China Studies. 

The group may apply for a grant of up to $150,000 to design and pilot activities solving specific, pressing challenges in the field over a 12 to 18-month period. The collaborative grant will serve to test and refine promising solutions; to produce recommendations for those activities to be adopted at scale in universities and colleges; and to identify strategies for long-term sustainability. Outcomes may include a pilot program, a new cross-institutional network, a plan for scaling and/or sustainability, or a white paper. Recommendations for action produced by grant-funded activities will be shared with the ACLS Board and the ACLS Research University Consortium.

China's State Councilor and Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong and US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas met in Vienna, Austria on Sunday local time, discussing bilateral cooperation in drug control and law enforcement. The Chinese side also urged Washington to stop harassing and interrogating Chinese students for no reason, and ensure that Chinese citizens enjoy fair entry treatment.

The destinations for Chinese students studying abroad will become more diverse and comprehensive, while China remains the largest source of international students for countries such as the US, the UK, Australia, Japan, Germany and New Zealand during the 2022-23 academic year, according to a report released by Beijing-based Center for China and Globalization (CCG).

For 15 years in a row, China has been the largest source of international students in the US. Over the 2022-23 academic year, there were 289,000 Chinese students studying in the US. The number of Indian students studying in the US has been rapidly increasing since 2020, and India now has only 20,000 fewer students studying in the US compared to China, said the report, named as The Development of Chinese Students Studying Abroad for 2023-24.

When: March 7 (Thu), March 9 (Sat), and March 12 (Tue), 10:00 am-12:00nn 
Where: Online via zoom (RSVP here)

Our forums aim to explore the dynamic shifts in “pan-Chinese” identities against the backdrop of localist activism and the growing demand for “decolonizing Chinese history.” The series will delve into the personal struggles of three ethnic Chinese descendants from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Malaysia, revealing how they confront Chinese identity on a personal level and face the threats posed by China and existing domestically on the societal level. Through their stories, we ask you to join us in analyzing how the younger generation of Chinese descendants in the East Asian region revisits the idea of “China”, “Chineseness”, and local/student activism.

And so it is that an archive containing nearly 800 indie films and oral interviews with more than 100 film-makers came to be preserved around 5,000 miles away from Beijing. Newcastle‘s Chinese Independent Film Archive (Cifa), which opened in September 2023, is the world‘s largest publicly accessible archive of independent Chinese films. It is also “the first of its kind outside China that is housed at a university and is accessible”, says Karin Chien, a film producer and the co-founder of dGenerate Films, a distributor of Chinese indie cinema.

The archive is the brainchild of Sabrina Qiong Yu, a film and Chinese studies professor at Newcastle University. The idea came about after she organised a 10th anniversary event for Ciff in Newcastle in 2014. Ciff had started in 2003, and was one of the major independent film festivals to flourish in the years when cheap, digital equipment started to become widely available, empowering indie film-makers in a period of relative openness in the country.

When: Tuesday, March 12, 5-6:30 pm
Where: University of Notre Dame Coach House, Green College, UBC and livestreamed 
(Coffee and tea will be available at 4:30 pm in the Piano Lounge, Graham House)
Lecture by Michel Hockx, Global Affairs

This lecture will draw on the insights of New Censorship Studies to discuss examples of censorship of modern Chinese literature from both before and after the 1949 communist takeover. Since the 1990s, humanities scholars active in the field of New Censorship Studies have highlighted the ways in which all human communication inevitably takes place in contexts where social forces impose limits to free expression. New Censorship Studies shows us that, when it comes to culture, censorship is the norm rather than the exception, and that censorship is a global phenomenon. The challenge for humanities scholars, especially those of us working on China, is to document, describe, contextualize and analyse each instance of censorship in detail, and to resist simplified judgments.