Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon
aims to alert you to the threats and opportunities that China and India present. China and India require serious attention; case of ‘hidden dragon and crouching tiger’.
Without this attention, governments, businesses and, indeed, individuals may find themselves at a great disadvantage sooner rather than later.
The POSTs (front webpages) are mainly 'cuttings' from reliable sources, updated continuously.
The PAGEs (see Tabs, above) attempt to make the information more meaningful by putting some structure to the information we have researched and assembled since 2006.
BEIJING, April 18 (Xinhua) — New media platforms are reshaping China’s documentary industry, ushering in a new era of vigorous development, said Zhang Tongdao, director of the Documentary Center with Beijing Normal University.
There is a rapid growth of new media companies in the documentary market, according to an annual study report of the development of Chinese documentary in 2020, which was released Saturday by the center, the China Intercontinental Communication Center and other institutions.
China’s total investment in documentary making was 5.04 billion yuan (about 710 million U.S. dollars) last year, and the country was blessed with 6.66 billion yuan in total output value, according to the report.
“More and more documentaries are broadcast on the internet, even only on the internet media, which complement those aired on television,” Zhang said.
Some documentaries, including “Flavorful Origins: Chaoshan Cuisine” by Tencent video and the second season of “The Story Of Chuaner” by video-sharing platform Bilibili, gained the brand value in 2019 through exclusive streaming on the platforms.
The report also showed that the documentary production capacity of new media companies reached a new height in 2019.
Last year, Tencent produced 23 documentaries on its own, accounting for about one-third of its total online projects throughout the year. Bilibili produced and launched 16 documentaries, totaling 55.6 hours, while iQiyi, also an online platform, produced or co-produced 15 documentaries, said the report.
The report added that documentary producers and streamers are also foraying into the short video field, varying versions such as shorter or longer in length for different platforms.
LHASA, April 11 (Xinhua) — Southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region has been making efforts to boost e-commerce in its agricultural and pastoral areas, according to the local poverty alleviation office.
Tibet has set up hundreds of e-commerce service centers in its villages, towns and counties to help form an e-commerce service network and help locals get jobs or start up their own businesses.
Thanks to these efforts, the total revenue of online sales in these areas had reached over 200 million yuan (about 28.4 million U.S. dollars) in 2019.
“We can sell local specialties such as dried yak meat and curd to customers via livestreaming,” said Samten, a herdsman who lives in Zaxoi Village in Lhasa, capital of Tibet.
Samten added that the spike in online sales in Tibet was due to the Internet and logistics coverage in nearly all the villages.
At present, major China’s express giants including SF Express and JD.com have set up branches in Lhasa and other cities, while more couriers have entered counties and villages across the region, benefiting more local farmers and herdsmen.
Malfunction happened during third stage of launch after earlier stages were completed successfully, state media says
Failed mission is second in less than a month after Long March-7A encountered problems after lift-off on March 16
A Long March-3B carrier rocket blasts off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in Sichuan province in November. A similar launch on Thursday ended in failure. Photo: Xinhua
China’s space programme suffered another setback on Thursday night with its second rocket launch failure in less than a month.
Officials are investigating what caused a malfunction during the third stage of the Long March-3B launch after lift-off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in southwest Sichuan province at 7.46pm with an Indonesian Palapa-N1 satellite, Xinhua reported.
“The first and second stages of the rocket performed well, but the third stage malfunctioned,” the report said.
“Debris from the third stage of the rocket and the satellite fell [to the ground]. The launch mission failed.”
Debris from the failed mission rained down over Guam on Thursday night. Photo: Twitter
China’s state media did not say where the rocket landed, but the office of Guam Homeland Security and Civil Defence said “a fiery object over the Marianas sky” observed on Thursday evening was likely connected to the failed launch.
Video footage of the burning debris falling from the sky was widely circulated on social media.
The setback follows another failed launch on March 16, when China’s new Long March-7A, a three-stage, medium-lift, liquid-fuel rocket, encountered an “abnormality” minutes after lifting off from its launch site in the southern island province of Hainan.
China’s BeiDou system one satellite closer to full operation
11 Mar 2020
The satellite lost on Thursday – the Nusantara 2 – was built in China for Indonesian telecommunication companies Pasifik Satelit Nusantara and Indosat Ooredoo. It was intended to replace an older satellite to provide internet and broadcasting services in Indonesia and across the Asia-Pacific region to Australia, The Jakarta Post reported earlier this month.
It is not known if the failed launch will have an impact on other Long March-3B satellite launches planned for later in the year.
Introduced in 1996, the Long March-3B – also known as the CZ-3B or LM-3B – has been the main orbital carrier rocket of China’s space programme. It was used to carry many of the satellites that make up China’s BeiDou navigation system, with the latest addition being in March.
For that launch, engineers used parachutes to control where the rocket’s boosters would land after being discarded after lift-off so as to minimise the impact on people living below, state media reported.
The latest version of the Long March-3B entered service in 2007 and is dedicated to launching heavy communications satellites of up to 5.5 tonnes into geostationary transfer orbits.
BEIJING, April 6 (Xinhua) — Bike riding, bird watching, or simply enjoying the natural scenery against the blue sky. A wild duck lake wetland in suburban Beijing has attracted urbanites during the traditional Qingming festival.
The park imposes a daily limit of 1,680 visitors and workers take body temperatures for visitors and ask them to show their health codes, which are common preventive measures in many scenic spots.
“Our tickets sold out one day in advance on the Internet, “said Liu Xuemei, a park management official. “Through the online booking of tickets, we strictly control the flow of tourists to protect wild birds as it is a season of bird migration.”
Besides paying tribute to the dead, outing is another tradition among Chinese during Tomb-sweeping Day, also known as Qingming Festival which fell on Saturday. Citizens enjoy a three-day holiday for the festival.
As China’s domestic COVID-19 situation continues its improving trend, more parks and scenic sites have reopened across the country, providing places for citizens to have spring outings amid tight prevention measures.
On Saturday, the Juyongguan section of the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs in Beijing reopened to the public after two months of closure in the prevention and control of COVID-19.
The famous Badaling section of the Great Wall in Beijing, which partly opened on March 24, hosted 12,000 tourists on Sunday alone.
Beijing’s major parks, which partly opened to the public, also adopted strict measures to control the number of tourists while cancelling some traditional spring activities such as enjoying flowers to avoid gathering.
Data from several domestic travel companies such as Qunar and Trip.com show that the domestic tourism industry is recovering and the booking volume of tickets for travel, hotels and scenic spots is on the rise.
Since March, some of the business activities of travel agencies have resumed in more than 10 provinces and municipalities. Tours around cities and 1-hour high-speed trips are popular, according to the travel platforms.
“I haven’t been out during the epidemic. It’s fine today. I brought my daughter to the mountain area to breathe fresh air and relax,” said a female tourist surnamed Liu, in the city of Wuhu, east China’s Anhui Province. Liu went to the suburban area of Wuhu with her daughter for an outing on Saturday and said she felt the epidemic prevention measures were reassuring.
At the Balihe scenic area in Yingshang County, Anhui, the number of tourists rose from 1,000 after it reopened on March 15 to about 8,000 per day during the Qingming holiday.
The scenic area implements online real-name booking. Its tourist service center has a body temperature detection area and provides wash-free disinfectant. Staff members wear masks and gloves, according to Wang Longtao, deputy general manager of a company in charge of the Balihe tourism development.
“I am optimistic about the recovery of domestic tourism. People have accumulated a strong desire to consume,” said Liang Jianzhang, co-founder and chairman of Trip.com Group.
Huangshan Mountain, a UNESCO world heritage site in Anhui Province, saw 20,000 tourists on Saturday and Sunday, as pictures of crowded tourists triggered concerns over epidemic prevention.
The scenic area authorities said Monday they increased 20 transfer buses and mobilized a total of 160 buses to prevent overcrowding.
Industry experts warn that as the COVID-19 epidemic has not ended domestically and the pressure of imported cases is growing, scenic spots should make people’s safety and health the top priority and take targeted measures as they reopen.
Buying and paying for meals and supplies online was already second nature for many Chinese before the Covid-19 lockdown
The supply and delivery networks that were already in place were able to work with the authorities in cities like Wuhan
China’s established home delivery system played an important role in getting food and other necessities to residents during the Wuhan lockdown. Photo: EPA-EFE
When Liu Yilin, a retired middle schoolteacher in Wuhan, first heard rumours of a
and shoppers flooded to the markets and malls to snap up supplies.
But as time went on and with residents banned from leaving their homes, he became increasingly concerned about getting hold of fresh supplies of vegetables, fruit and meat until the nation’s vast network of delivery drivers came to the rescue.
“It was such a relief that several necessity purchasing groups organised by community workers and volunteers suddenly emerged on WeChat [a leading social media app] days after the lockdown,” Liu said. “China’s powerful home delivery service makes life much easier at a time of crisis.”
Hu Xingdou, a Beijing-based independent political economist said: “Home delivery played a very important role amid the coronavirus outbreak. To some extent, it prevented people from starving especially in cases when local governments took extreme measures to isolate people.”
According to Liu, people in Wuhan during the lockdown had to stay within their residential communities, with community workers guarding the exits.
Human contact was limited to the internet. Residents placed orders online with farmers, small merchants or supermarkets to buy daily necessities, and community workers helped distribute the goods from deliverymen.
Every morning, Liu passed a piece of paper with his name, phone number and order number to a community worker who would collect the items from a courier at the gate of the residential area.
Thanks to a high population density in urban areas, affluent labour force and people’s openness to digital life, China has built a well-developed home delivery network.
Extensive funding from technology companies has been invested in hardware infrastructure, software to improve logistics and big data and cloud computing to help predict consumers’ behaviour.
Mark Greeven, professor of innovation and strategy at IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland, said: “Whether it is delivery of products, air parcels or fresh food or even medicine or materials for medical use, China has a very well developed system. Much better developed than I think almost any other places in the world.
“Well before the crisis, China had started to embrace digital technology in daily life whether it is in consumption, business, government and smart cities and use of third party payments. All of these things have been in place for a long time and the crisis tested its agility and capability to deal with peak demand.”
China’s e-commerce giants help revive sales of farm goods from Hubei
3 Apr 2020
According to e-commerce giant JD.com, demands for e-commerce and delivery services spiked during the outbreak of Covid-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus.
It sold around 220 million items between January 20 and February 28, mainly grains and dairy products with the value of beef orders trebling and chicken deliveries quadrupling compared with a year ago.
Tang Yishen, head of JD Fresh, its fresh foods subsidiary, said: “The surge of online demand for fresh merchandise shows the pandemic helped e-commerce providers further penetrate into the life of customers. It also helped upstream farm producers to know and trust us.”
Meituan Dianping, a leading e-commerce platform, said its grocery retail service Meituan Instashopping reported a 400 per cent growth in sales from a year ago in February from local supermarkets.
The most popular items ordered between January 26 and February 8 were face masks, disinfectant, tangerines, packed fresh-cut fruits and potatoes.
The food delivery service Ele.me said that, between January 21 and February 8, deliveries of frozen food surged more than 600 per cent year on year, followed by a nearly 500 per cent growth in delivery of pet-care products. Fresh food deliveries rose by 181 per cent while drink and snack deliveries climbed by 101 per cent and 82 per cent, respectively. Ele.me is owned by Alibaba, the parent company of the South China Morning Post.
Chinese hotpot restaurant chain adapts as coronavirus fears push communal meals off the menu
E-commerce providers used the opportunity to show goodwill and improve their relationship with customers and partners, analysts say.
Sofya Bakhta, marketing strategy analyst at the Shanghai-based Daxue Consulting, said the food delivery sector had made significant headway in reducing physical contact during the outbreak.
Delivery staff left orders in front of buildings, in lifts or temporary shelters as instructed by the clients as most properties no longer allowed them inside.
Some companies also adopted more hi-tech strategies.
In Beijing, Meituan used self-driving vehicles to deliver meals to contactless pickup stations. It also offered cardboard boxes to be used as shields aimed at preventing the spread of droplets among its clients while they ate in their workplaces. In Shanghai, Ele.me employed delivery drones to serve people under quarantine in the most affected regions.
Some companies even “shared” employees to meet the growing labour demand in the food delivery industry that could not be satisfied with their ordinary workforce, Bakhta said.
More employees from restaurants, general retail and other service businesses were “loaned” to food delivery companies, which faced manpower shortages during the outbreak, according to Sandy Shen, senior research director at global consultancy Gartner.
“These arrangements not only ensured the continuity of the delivery service but also helped businesses to retain employees during the shutdown,” she said.
A delivery man takes a break between orders in Wuhan, central China, during the lockdown. Photo: AFP
Mo Xinsheng became one such “on-loan” worker after customers stopped coming to the Beijing restaurant where he worked as a kitchen assistant.
“I wanted to earn some money and meanwhile help people who are trapped at home,” said Mo, who was hired as a delivery man.
But before he could start work he had to go through lengthy health checks before he was allowed into residential compounds.
He also had to work long hours battling the wind and cold of a Beijing winter and carrying heavy loads.
“I work about 10 hours every day just to earn several thousand yuan [several hundred US dollars] a month,” he said.
“Sometimes I almost couldn’t breathe while my hands were fully loaded with packages of rice, oil and other things.
“But I know I’m doing an important job, especially at a time of crisis,” Mo said, “It was not until then that I realised people have become so reliant on the home delivery system.”
Woman uses remote control car to buy steamed buns amid coronavirus outbreak in China
The delivery system has been improved by an effective combination of private sector innovation and public sector coordination, said Li Chen, assistant professor at the Centre for China Studies at Chinese University of Hong Kong.
“[In China,] government units and the Communist Party grass roots organisations have maintained fairly strong mobilisation capabilities to cope with emergencies, which has worked well in the crisis,” he said.
However, Liu, the Wuhan resident, said prices had gone up and vegetables were three times more expensive than they had been over Lunar New Year in 2019.
“There were few varieties that we could choose from, apart from potatoes, cabbage and carrots,” he said.
“But I’m not complaining. It’s good we can still get fresh vegetables at a difficult time. Isn’t it? After all, we are just ordinary people,” he said.
Mainland China’s coronavirus outbreak exposed a huge digital divide, with some students from poorer regions lacking resources for online learning
Access to the internet is not considered a daily necessity at China’s policy level, unlike in European countries such as Norway and Iceland
Chinese children attend a computer class in Beijing to learn how to properly use the internet. Those in poorer parts of the country lack sufficient access to the internet, as the switch to online teaching during the coronavirus outbreak in China showed. Photo: AFP
The coronavirus outbreak in mainland China highlighted the huge digital divide that exists between richer and poorer regions.
When schools shut and online learning was made compulsory, many students living in remote areas found they didn’t have sufficient internet access.
There were 1.6 billion mobile phone subscribers in China in 2019, with many people having more than one subscription, and optical fibre and 4G covered 98 per cent of the population, according to official data.
These figures fail to show the large regional disparity between the country’s rich and poor provinces, says Jack Chan Wing-kit, associate professor of the school of government at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou province.
“In poor areas, a family [often] has to share one mobile phone among all members,” says Chan, who has done extensive research on China’s social problems.
It is easier for service providers to offer blanket coverage in densely populated cities where most people live in high-rise buildings, Chan explains.
“In rural areas, people live in bungalows that are widely spread out. It is not economically efficient for phone service providers like China Mobile to install transmission stations there, which explain their spotty coverage,” he says.
While the universal social security net in China covers people including the old and disabled, access to the internet is not considered a daily necessity at the policy level. That’s unlike European countries such as Norway and Iceland, who see the internet as a basic human right and ensure their entire populations have proper access to it.
Though some wealthier coastal cities within the Pearl River Delta recently conducted local surveys to identify less-well-off households and handed out tablet computers, inland provinces in central and western China cannot afford these measures, Chan says.
The Chinese government does not encourage [the setting up of] charities – Erwin Huang, founder of WebOrganic and EdFuture
Philanthropic efforts could help address this problem, as shown by Hong Kong’s experience in tackling the digital divide.
About 900,000 kindergarten, primary and secondary students in the city have been affected by school suspensions that are likely to last until at least April 20.
While families of disadvantaged students have received support from the government through Comprehensive Social Security Assistance and other welfare schemes, many children still lack digital resources as their parents don’t see it as a priority, says Erwin Huang, founder of both WebOrganic, a charity promoting computer access to such youngsters, and education alliance EdFuture.
That has left it up to charities to make sure all students have enough resources at home for online learning, Huang says. For instance, this month EdFuture worked with local mobile service provider SmarTone to give out free phone data SIM cards lasting two months to 10,000 students.
“It’s for those who live in subdivided flats and those who have to go to McDonald’s for Wi-fi access,” says Huang, who is also associate professor of engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Many students in China’s poorer regions have been left at a disadvantage by the shift to online learning. Photo: Getty Images
The Hong Kong Jockey Club also recently launched a HK$42 million (US$5.4 million) scheme to provide free mobile internet data to 100,000 underprivileged primary- and secondary-school students to help with online learning while schools are closed.
Huang says while such charities help fill gaps in the provision of digital resources in Hong Kong, a similar philanthropic culture is lacking in China.
“The Chinese government does not encourage [the setting up of] charities,” he says.
Huang initiated several digital resources projects in China after the Sichuan earthquake in 2008, but says frequent media reports of scandals involving charities such as China’s Red Cross have made it harder forNGOs to operate in the country, with the government preferring to provide social services through its own departments.
A document that appears to give the most powerful insight yet into how China determined the fate of hundreds of thousands of Muslims held in a network of internment camps has been seen by the BBC.
Listing the personal details of more than 3,000 individuals from the far western region of Xinjiang, it sets out in intricate detail the most intimate aspects of their daily lives.
The painstaking records – made up of 137 pages of columns and rows – include how often people pray, how they dress, whom they contact and how their family members behave.
China denies any wrongdoing, saying it is combating terrorism and religious extremism.
One of the world’s leading experts on China’s policies in Xinjiang, Dr Adrian Zenz, a senior fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington, believes the latest leak is genuine.
“This remarkable document presents the strongest evidence I’ve seen to date that Beijing is actively persecuting and punishing normal practices of traditional religious beliefs,” he says.
One of the camps mentioned in it, the “Number Four Training Centre” has been identified by Dr Zenz as among those visited by the BBC as part of a tour organised by the Chinese authorities in May last year.
Media caption The BBC previously visited one of the camps identified by scholars using the Karakax List
Much of the evidence uncovered by the BBC team appears to be corroborated by the new document, redacted for publication to protect the privacy of those included in it.
It contains details of the investigations into 311 main individuals, listing their backgrounds, religious habits, and relationships with many hundreds of relatives, neighbours and friends.
Verdicts written in a final column decide whether those already in internment should remain or be released, and whether some of those previously released need to return.
It allows a glimpse inside the minds of those making the decisions, he says, laying bare the “ideological and administrative micromechanics” of the camps.
Row 598 contains the case of a 38-year-old woman with the first name Helchem, sent to a re-education camp for one main reason: she was known to have worn a veil some years ago.
It is just one of a number of cases of arbitrary, retrospective punishment.
Others were interned simply for applying for a passport – proof that even the intention to travel abroad is now seen as a sign of radicalisation in Xinjiang.
In row 66, a 34-year-old man with the first name Memettohti was interned for precisely this reason, despite being described as posing “no practical risk”.
And then there’s the 28-year-old man Nurmemet in row 239, put into re-education for “clicking on a web-link and unintentionally landing on a foreign website”.
Again, his case notes describe no other issues with his behaviour.
The 311 main individuals listed are all from Karakax County, close to the city of Hotan in southern Xinjiang, an area where more than 90% of the population is Uighur.
Predominantly Muslim, the Uighurs are closer in appearance, language and culture to the peoples of Central Asia than to China’s majority ethnicity, the Han Chinese.
In recent decades the influx of millions of Han settlers into Xinjiang has led to rising ethnic tensions and a growing sense of economic exclusion among Uighurs.
Those grievances have sometimes found expression in sporadic outbreaks of violence, fuelling a cycle of increasingly harsh security responses from Beijing.
It is for this reason that the Uighurs have become the target – along with Xinjiang’s other Muslim minorities, like the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz – of the campaign of internment
The “Karakax List”, as Dr Zenz calls the document, encapsulates the way the Chinese state now views almost any expression of religious belief as a signal of disloyalty.
To root out that perceived disloyalty, he says, the state has had to find ways to penetrate deep into Uighur homes and hearts.
In early 2017, when the internment campaign began in earnest, groups of loyal Communist Party workers, known as “village-based work teams”, began to rake through Uighur society with a massive dragnet.
With each member assigned a number of households, they visited, befriended and took detailed notes about the “religious atmosphere” in the homes; for example, how many Korans they had or whether religious rites were observed.
The Karakax List appears to be the most substantial evidence of the way this detailed information gathering has been used to sweep people into the camps.
It reveals, for example, how China has used the concept of “guilt by association” to incriminate and detain whole extended family networks in Xinjiang.
For every main individual, the 11th column of the spreadsheet is used to record their family relationships and their social circle.
Alongside each relative or friend listed is a note of their own background; how often they pray, whether they’ve been interned, whether they’ve been abroad.
In fact, the title of the document makes clear that the main individuals listed all have a relative currently living overseas – a category long seen as a key indicator of potential disloyalty, leading to almost certain internment.
Rows 179, 315 and 345 contain a series of assessments for a 65-year-old man, Yusup.
His record shows two daughters who “wore veils and burkas in 2014 and 2015”, a son with Islamic political leanings and a family that displays “obvious anti-Han sentiment”.
His verdict is “continued training” – one of a number of examples of someone interned not just for their own actions and beliefs, but for those of their family.
The information collected by the village teams is also fed into Xinjiang’s big data system, called the Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP).
The IJOP contains the region’s surveillance and policing records, culled from a vast network of cameras and the intrusive mobile spyware every citizen is forced to download.
The IJOP, Dr Zenz suggests, can in turn use its AI brain to cross-reference these layers of data and send “push notifications” to the village teams to investigate a particular individual.
Image caption Adrian Zenz has analysed the leaked document
The man found “unintentionally landing on a foreign website” may well have been interned thanks to the IJOP.
In many cases though, there is little need for advanced technology, with the vast and vague catch-all term “untrustworthy” appearing multiple times in the document.
It is listed as the sole reason for the internment of a total of 88 individuals.
The concept, Dr Zenz argues, is proof that the system is designed not for those who have committed a crime, but for an entire demographic viewed as potentially suspicious.
China says Xinjiang has policies that “respect and ensure people’s freedom of religious belief”. It also insists that what it calls a “vocational training programme in Xinjiang” is “for the purposes of combating terrorism and religious extremism”, adding only people who have been convicted of crimes involving terrorism or religious extremism are being “educated” in these centres.
However, many of the cases in the Karakax List give multiple reasons for internment; various combinations of religion, passport, family, contacts overseas or simply being untrustworthy.
The most frequently listed is for violating China’s strict family planning laws.
In the eyes of the Chinese authorities it seems, having too many children is the clearest sign that Uighurs put their loyalty to culture and tradition above obedience to the secular state.
China has long defended its actions in Xinjiang as part of an urgent response to the threat of extremism and terrorism.
The Karakax List does contain some references to those kinds of crimes, with at least six entries for preparing, practicing or instigating terrorism and two cases of watching illegal videos.
But the broader focus of those compiling the document appears to be faith itself, with more than 100 entries describing the “religious atmosphere” at home.
The Karakax List has no stamps or other authenticating marks so, at face value, it is difficult to verify.
It is thought to have been passed out of Xinjiang sometime before late June last year, along with a number of other sensitive papers.
They ended up in the hands of an anonymous Uighur exile who passed all of them on, except for this one document.
Only after the first batch was published last year was the Karakax List then forwarded to his conduit, another Uighur living in Amsterdam, Asiye Abdulaheb.
She told the BBC that she is certain it is genuine.
Image caption Asiye Abdulaheb decided to speak out, despite the danger
“Regardless of whether there are official stamps on the document or not, this is information about real, live people,” she says. “It is private information about people that wouldn’t be made public. So there is no way for the Chinese government to claim it is fake.”
Like all Uighurs living overseas, Ms Abdulaheb lost contact with her family in Xinjiang when the internment campaign began, and she’s been unable to contact them since.
But she says she had no choice but to release the document, passing it to a group of international media organisations, including the BBC.
“Of course I am worried about the safety of my relatives and friends,” she says. “But if everyone keeps silent because they want to protect themselves and their families, then we will never prevent these crimes being committed.”
Almost 90% of the 311 main individuals in the Karakax List are shown as having already been released or as being due for release on completion of a full year in the camps.
But Dr Zenz points out that the re-education camps are just one part of a bigger system of internment, much of which remains hidden from the outside world.
Image caption The outside of one of the camps in Xinjiang
More than two dozen individuals are listed as “recommended” for release into “industrial park employment” – career “advice” that they may have little choice but to obey. There are well documented concerns that China is now building a system of coerced labour as the next phase of its plan to align Uighur life with its own vision of a modern society.
In two cases, the re-education ends in the detainees being sent to “strike hard detention”, a reminder that the formal prison system has been cranked into overdrive in recent years.
Many of the family relationships listed in the document show long prison terms for parents or siblings, sometimes for entirely normal religious observances and practices.
One man’s father is shown to have been sentenced to five years for “having a double-coloured thick beard and organising a religious studies group”.
A neighbour is reported to have been given 15 years for “online contact with people overseas”, and another man’s younger brother given 10 years for “storing treasonable pictures on his phone”.
Whether or not China has closed its re-education camps in Xinjiang, Dr Zenz says the Karakax List tells us something important about the psychology of a system that prevails.
“It reveals the witch-hunt-like mindset that has been and continues to dominate social life in the region,” he said.
Image copyright MUKHTAR ZAHOORImage caption Muneeb Ul Islam can no longer afford to work as a journalist in Kashmir
Journalists in Indian-administered Kashmir are struggling to make ends meet amid a months-long communications blockade that has only partially been lifted. The BBC’s Priyanka Dubey visited the region to find out more.
Muneeb Ul Islam, 29, had worked as a photo-journalist in Kashmir for five years, his pictures appearing in several publications in India and abroad.
But the young photographer’s dream job vanished almost overnight in August last year, when India’s federal government suspended landline, mobile and internet services in Kashmir.
The government’s move came a day before its announcement that it was revoking the region’s special status – a constitutionally-guaranteed provision, which gave Kashmir partial autonomy in matters related to property ownership, permanent residency and fundamental rights.
The controversial decision catapulted the Muslim-majority valley into global news – but local journalists like Mr Islam had no way to report on what was going on. And worse, they had to find other things to do because journalism could no longer pay the bills.
By January, the region had not had access to the internet for more than 150 days, India’s longest such shutdown.
Media caption The silenced YouTube stars of Indian-administered Kashmir
“I chose journalism because I wanted to do something for my people,” Mr Islam explains. “I covered this conflict-ridden region with dedication until the loss of Kashmir’s special status put a full stop on my journey.”
In January, the government eased restrictions and allowed limited broadband service in the Muslim-majority valley, while 2G mobile coverage resumed in parts of the neighbouring Jammu region. But mobile internet and social media are still largely blocked.
India says this is necessary to maintain law and order since the region saw protests in August, and there has also been a long-running insurgency against Indian rule. But opposition leaders and critics of the move say the government cannot leave these restrictions in place indefinitely.
Meanwhile, journalists like Mr Islam are struggling.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Kashmiri journalists protested after 100 days of no internet in the region
For months, Mr Islam says, he kept trying to report and file stories and photos.
In September, he even spent 6,000 rupees ($84; £65) of his own money to make two trips to the capital, Srinagar, for a story. But he soon ran out of funds and had to stop.
He then tried to file his stories on a landline phone: he would call and read them aloud to someone on the other side who could type it out. But, as he found out, his stories didn’t earn him enough money to cover the cost of travelling for hours in search of a working landline.
And Mr Islam was desperate for money because his wife was ill. So he eventually asked his brother for help, finding work carrying bricks on a construction site in his neighbourhood in Anantnag city. It pays him 500 rupees a day.
Mr Islam is not the only journalist in Kashmir who has been forced to abandon their career for another job.
Another journalist, who did not want to reveal his name, says he had been working as a reporter for several years, but quit the profession in August. He now plans to work in a dairy farm.
Image copyright MUKHTAR ZAHOORImage caption Internet is available in some government offices
Yet another reporter, who also also wished to remain anonymous, says he used to earn enough to comfortably provide for his family. Now, he barely has money to buy petrol for his motorcycle.
“I have no money because I have not been able to file any story in the last six months,” a third reporter, who spoke to the BBC on the condition of anonymity, says. “My family keeps telling me to find another job. But what else can I do?”
In December, people were given limited access to the internet at a government office in Anantnag, but this hasn’t helped local journalists. The office, Mr Islam says, is always crowded and there are only four desktops for a scrum of officials, students and youngsters who want to log on to respond to emails, fill exam forms, submit job applications or even check their social media.
“We have access for only for a few minutes and the internet speed is slow,” he explains. “We are barely able to access email, forget reading the news.”
What’s more, Mr Islam says those who work at the office often ask customers to show them the contents of emails. “This makes us uncomfortable, but we don’t have a choice.”
Image copyright MUKHTAR ZAHOORImage caption Basheer Manzar runs Kashmir Images, a local newspaper
Many journalists say that they have been completely cut off from their contacts for months now, making it hard to to maintain their networks or sources.
They also speak of how humiliating it is to beg for wi-fi passwords and hotspots at the cramped media centre in Srinagar, which has less than two dozen computers for hundreds of journalists.
This has left publishers in the lurch too. “My reporters and writers are not able to file,” says Basheer Manzar, the editor of Kashmir Images.
He still publishes a print edition, he says, because if he doesn’t do so for a certain number of days in the month, he will lose the license.
But the website continues to struggle, he adds, because most of the readers in Indian-administered Kashmir have no access to the internet.
“I know what is happening in New York through news on the TV, but I don’t know what’s happening in my hometown.”
A push to connect Pacific nations highlights a submarine struggle for dominance over the world’s technology infrastructure
The ambitions of Chinese tech giants like Huawei, which have laid thousands of kilometres of cable, are of increasing concern to Washington
The ambitions of Chinese tech giants like Huawei, which have laid thousands of kilometres of cable, are of increasing concern to Washington. Photo: Reuters
While the US has been upping the pressure on its allies not to include equipment made by Chinese telecom giants like Huawei and ZTE in their 5G systems, Chinese companies have gained a foothold in some of the world’s most essential communications infrastructure – undersea internet cables.
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Almost all global data communications flow through cables under the ocean – just one per cent travels by satellite – and Chinese companies have quietly been eroding US, European and Japanese dominance over the backbone of the internet, the undersea cable market. Now, they have trained their sights on connecting one of the most virtually remote parts of the globe, the Pacific Island countries.
Of the 378 cables currently operating worldwide, 23 are under the Pacific. But many of these cables run right by Pacific Island nations on their paths between hubs in Los Angeles, Tokyo and Singapore.
An electric submarine cable and optical fibre. File photo
Despite the volume of data flowing under the Pacific Ocean, just half a million of the 11 million people living in Pacific Island countries and Papua New Guinea – less than five per cent – have access to a wired internet connection and only 1.5 million to a mobile connection, according to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for the Asia Pacific (UNESCAP), compared with 53 per cent of people in Thailand and 60 per cent in the Philippines.
More than US$4 billion worth of cables are to come into service by 2021, continuing a trend in which US$2 billion worth of cables have come online every year since 2016, and six of these cables will connect Pacific Island countries.
The push to connect Pacific Island nations to the latest generation of internet infrastructure has received extra scrutiny from the US and its allies like Australia
over the involvement of Chinese tech companies.
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SECURITY CONCERNS
While the US has moved to block Huawei from supplying equipment to its allies’ 5G networks, experts say Chinese tech companies could contest the US, EU and
long-standing dominance over global data traffic through investments in subsea cables.
Chinese tech giants like Huawei have entire divisions devoted to undersea connectivity that have laid thousands of kilometres of cable, and Chinese state telecommunication companies such as China Unicom have access to many of the existing trans-Pacific cables.
But a panel led by the US Department of Justice has held up a nearly complete trans-Pacific cable project over concerns about its Chinese investor, Beijing-based Dr Peng Telecom & Media Group.
The project, the Pacific Light Cable Network, could be the first cable rejected by the panel on the grounds of national security – despite being backed by American tech giants Google and Facebook – setting a precedent for a tougher US stance on Chinese involvement in subsea cables.
Chinese tech giants like Huawei have entire divisions devoted to undersea connectivity that have laid thousands of kilometres of cable. Photo: AP
Craige Sloots, director of sales at Southern Cross Cable Network, which operates the largest existing sets of trans-Pacific cables, said for any new cable, regulators were likely to scrutinise the ownership of the companies involved and the maker of the project’s equipment.
These two factors, said Sloots, “pragmatically limit some of the providers you can use if you want to connect through the US”.
Experts say that Hong Kong, where the stalled Pacific Light Cable would land, was previously considered a more secure shore landing point than mainland China. But people close to the project say the recent unrest in the city has made this distinction less relevant, according to The Wall Street Journal.
If these nations want to be part of the international economy, they need reliable communications: Bruce Howe, University of Hawaii
Similar concerns caused a proposed Huawei-backed cable linking Vanuatu with Papua New Guinea to be called off last year after Australia stepped in to fund its own cable instead.
Just months after the government-owned Solomon Islands Submarine Cable Company agreed to the project with Huawei in mid-2017, Canberra put up US$67 million to connect Sydney with the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea with cables laid under the Coral Sea by Nokia’s Alcatel Submarine Networks.
Simon Fletcher, CEO of Vanuatu company Interchange, which had been planning another cable in the neighbourhood connecting Vanuatu with the Solomon Islands, said the Coral Sea project undercut the viability for small private businesses to operate in the fledgling market, where services had historically been provided by international organisations like development banks. His company’s cable has been on pause since the announcement of the Coral Sea project, though Fletcher said it would go forward next year.
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VIRTUALLY REMOTE
For years, as Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore became global hubs of high-speed internet data traffic, the cables criss-crossing the ocean floor passed by just off the shores of Pacific Island countries en route between hubs on either side of the ocean.
Tiziana Bonapace, director of UNESCAP’s information technology and disaster risk-reduction division, said the Pacific Islands remain one of the most disconnected areas in the world, where “a vast proportion of the population has no access to the internet”.
Over the past five years, international organisations like UNESCAP, the Asia Development Bank and the World Bank have been pushing for better connectivity in the region. The World Bank’s Pacific Regional Connectivity Programme has invested more than US$90 million into broadband infrastructure for Fiji, the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Palau, Samoa and Tuvalu.
Internet cables in the Pacific Ocean.
But the business case had never been good, said Bonapace.
“A cable has to travel thousands of kilometres just to connect a population smaller than one of Asia’s megacities,” she said. “As everything we do is somehow connected to the internet, the prospects for the Pacific to become virtually more remote are even higher.”
Even nations which are connected have tenuous infrastructure. In January, Tonga experienced a total internet blackout for two weeks after damage to its single cable. Most parts of the world were linked by multiple cables to prevent this type of outage, said Bruce Howe, professor of ocean and resources engineering at University of Hawaii.
“If these nations want to be part of the international economy, they need reliable communications,” Howe said.
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DRAWING NEW LINES
In Papua New Guinea, where mobile internet currently reaches less than a third of the population, a partnership between local telecoms company GoPNG and the Export-Import Bank of China funded the new Huawei-built Kumul Domestic cable system, which came online this year.
The Southern Cross Next system, owned by Spark, Verizon, Singtel Optus and Telstra – the same group of shareholders which operates the massive 30,500km (19,000 mile) set of twin cables connecting the US with Australia and New Zealand known as Southern Cross – is planned to come online in 2022, and will connect directly to Fiji, Samoa, Kiribati and Tokelau.
Chinese telecoms company China Unicom counts the existing Southern Cross cables among its network capabilities – meaning it is likely to have access to the cable through a leasing agreement with one of the other companies that uses the cable, according to Canberra think tank the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).
An undersea fibre optic cable. Photo: AFP
China Unicom and China Telecom also list the Asia America Gateway Cable System as one of their network capabilities, according to ASPI. The 20,000km (12,400-mile) cable came online in 2009 and connects the US, Guam, Hong Kong, Brunei, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand.
It is owned by a consortium of carriers including AT&T, Telekom Malaysia, Telstra and Spark.
A cable backed by Google and the Australian Academic and Research Network connecting Japan and Australia through Guam is to come online early next year.
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WHAT’S NEXT
Natasha Beschorner, senior digital development specialist at the World Bank, said that while there were challenges ahead in terms of broadband access and affordability, increased connectivity was starting to bring new opportunities to the Pacific.
“Digital technologies can contribute to economic diversification, income generation and service delivery in the Pacific,” Beschorner said. “E-commerce and financial technologies are emerging and governments are considering how to roll out selected services online.”
Experts say the industry has recently seen a switch from cables being mostly funded by telecommunication carriers to being funded by content providers, like Google and Facebook. Members of the private cable industry say content companies can afford to invest in cable infrastructure to ensure the supply chain for their customers, but that the competition puts the squeeze on the research-and-development budgets of other types of companies.
Sloots at Southern Cross predicted that the nations which connected directly to the massive next-generation cable – Samoa, Kiribati and Tokelau – would be able to function as connecting points for intra-Pacific cables.
“There’s a blossoming effect in capability once certain islands are connected,” Sloots said.
There is also the push to locate an exchange point within the Pacific so that internet data no longer has to travel to a hub in Tokyo or Los Angeles and back to Pacific nations when processing – a move that could ultimately lower the cost of broadband internet service for consumers in the Pacific.
Perhaps the most effective outcome could be for Pacific nations to cut the cord and receive their internet by satellite.
The Asian Development Bank has agreed to give a US$50 million loan to Singapore’s Kacific Broadband Satellites International to provide up to two billion people across the Asia-Pacific region with affordable satellite-based internet.
The project is to be launched into orbit by SpaceX next week and aims to begin providing service by early next year.
India has formally divided the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two new federally-administered territories.
In the new arrangement, Jammu and Kashmir is one territory, and Ladakh, which borders China, is separate.
The two new union territories are now ruled directly from the capital Delhi.
It’s part of a controversial move announced in August to tighten the Indian government’s control over the part of Kashmir it administers.
R K Mathur and Girish Chandra Murmu were sworn in as lieutenant governors of Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir respectively on Thursday.
“Now the real participation of co-operative federalism will be seen. New highways, new railway lines, new schools, new hospitals will take the development of the people of Jammu and Kashmir to new heights,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at a public rally in the western state of Gujarat.
Union territories have far less autonomy from the federal government than states do.
The former state has long been one of the world’s most dangerous flashpoints and is a highly militarised area.
India and Pakistan both claim Kashmir in full, but control only parts of it.
How does this affect the people there?
Almost 98% of the state’s population will be in the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, comprising two regions – the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley, which has about eight million people, and the Hindu-majority Jammu, which has about six million.
The third region, the newly created union territory of Ladakh, is a high-altitude desert inhabited by 300,000 people, with almost equal numbers of Muslims and Buddhists.
Workers from the previous state government will continue to retain their jobs in the new territories, the government said.
What’s the background?
On 5 August, the government revoked Kashmir’s special status, sparking protests in the Muslim-majority valley.
Article 370, as the constitutional provision guaranteeing special status was known, allowed the region a certain amount of autonomy, including special privileges in property ownership, education and jobs. This provision had underpinned India’s often fraught relationship with Kashmir.
Before the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government announced its decision to scrap the special status, it put the region under lockdown – mobile phone networks, landlines and the internet were cut off; and regional political leaders were placed under house arrest.
Media caption The children being ‘tortured’ in Kashmir
The region also witnessed protests where security forces often clashed with civilians. Thousands of activists and others were believed to have been picked up from their homes in the days that followed the surprise move.
Almost three months later, the situation is still far from normal.
On Tuesday, militants killed five migrant labourers in Kulgam district. Just a day before, a truck driver from outside the region was killed in Anantnag district.
Earlier this month, the Indian government restored mobile services 72 days after they were suspended.
But internet services continue to be suspended and most businesses remain closed – some in protest against the government, and others for fear of reprisals from militants opposed to Indian rule.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 