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.
Image copyright STRDELImage caption Prime Minister Modi is the third most followed leader on Twitter after Donald Trump
The world’s second most popular leader – when it comes to social media, at least – sent shockwaves through the internet on Monday, after announcing he was considering leaving the platforms.
After all, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the only politician to even come close to challenging US President Donald Trump’s online dominance.
And so it was somewhat unsurprising that the hashtag #ModiQuitsSocialMedia began trending in India, with users quick to share a heady cocktail of conspiracy theories, memes and desperate pleas.
However, Mr Modi, who has 54 million followers on Twitter, 35.2 million followers on picture sharing platform Instagram and 44 million followers on Facebook, soon revealed the true reason behind his abandonment of social media.
On Tuesday, he said that he would “give away my social media accounts to women whose life & work inspire us”.
But the “big reveal” came only after his first tweet generated an absolute social media storm.
Some theories suggested he was quitting social media platforms as they were being controlled by his opponents. Others speculated that he would launch an indigenous social platform, to match Twitter and Facebook, something similar to social media platforms like WeChat and Weibo in China.
“Expect SM companies stock to crash,” wrote one confident user.
Apart from the theories, there were desperate pleas from his fans. One wrote: “Please Sir, You can’t leave social media now for the sake of your fans!” Another added: “Modi Ji if you leave social media , they will use it against you and nation interest.”
“For me he is not only PM of India but also emotion. You’re king of social media. Don’t go sir.”
Some users suggested that his account had been hacked.
Soon, #Iwillalsoleavetwitter started trending.
Arun Yadav, the head of Haryana state IT and social media for BJP, tweeted asking the PM to not quit the platform as it was one way Indians could communicate with him.
But there were also jokes.
“Spare a thought for Twitter, Facebook & their stocks. PM Modi is all set to demonetise social media,” wrote one user, referring to the overnight decision to ban high value currency notes in November.
One user suggested that the prime minister was quitting all other platforms in order to make his TikTok debut.
“Modi ji is a typical Indian boyfriend after breakup,” quipped one Twitter user.
“Modiji should be awarded Nobel Peace Prize for bringing peace in the digital world,” said another.
Image caption #NoModiNoTwitter was a India trend on Twitter after PM Modi’s tweet yesterday
There were political reactions too.
In a cheeky response, Rahul Gandhi, former president of the main opposition Congress party, tweeted: “Give up hatred, not social media accounts.”
Congress leader and MP Shashi Tharoor followed suit, writing: “The PM’s abrupt announcement has led many to worry whether it’s a prelude to banning these services throughout the country too.”
Mr Modi’s eventual tweet which clarified matters was seen by some as an anti-climax.
But for the millions who were pleading with him to reconsider, this is surely a big relief.
The enterprise collaboration industry in China is forecast to achieve a compound annual growth rate of 12.4 per cent over five years to reach US$7 billion by 2024
Tencent has been accused of using its market dominance with WeChat to stifle competition. Photo: Reuters
Tencent’s super app WeChat, with a user base of 1.2 billion people, has blocked links from a ByteDance remote work tool as Chinese tech giants fight for dominance in the burgeoning enterprise collaboration market.
The latest move adds another ByteDance app to WeChat’s blacklist, which already includes Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, and its sister platform Xigua Video, amid ongoing accusations that Tencent uses its market dominance to stifle competition.
Feishu, the Chinese version of ByteDance’s productivity tool Lark, said Saturday that users could not open any of its links on WeChat, nor could they share name cards to invite colleagues.
Feishu said WeChat did not provide advance notice of the ban, adding that the move has “significantly affected work efficiency and user experience” at a time when many companies in China have moved their office operations online to limit the spread of coronavirus infections.
Instead, Lark users need to copy the link and open it in a browser instead of opening it directly via WeChat.
Tencent launches new social apps as flagships WeChat and QQ show their age
13 Dec 2019
A WeChat representative declined to comment other than to cite the company’s regulations on external links. The rules, introduced in October 2019, said the platform will punish websites or apps that send links to “mislead or entice users to download or redirect to an external app”. Punishment includes blocking their domain name from opening in WeChat.
Xie Xin, a ByteDance vice president overseeing Feishu, said the app does not support sign-ups using a WeChat account nor does it enable the sharing of documents or messages on the Tencent app.
In addition to blocking the ByteDance app, WeChat also suspended two tech-focused media websites, 36Kr and ITHome, from publishing posts on the platform after they reported the Lark case over the weekend. The relevant articles have also been removed from WeChat.
The WeChat representative said it did not force media to delete their articles. Rather, the media in question have violated WeChat’s rules on multiple occasions.
The enterprise collaboration industry in China, which has received a huge boost from the health crisis, is forecast to achieve a compound annual growth rate of 12.4 per cent over five years to reach nearly 49 billion yuan (US$7 billion) by 2024, according to the Qianzhan Industry Research Institute.
Feishu is a small but fast-emerging player in the sector, jumping 40 places from late January to become the 15th most downloaded business iOS app on Monday. However, it still lags far behind Alibaba’s DingTalk and Tencent’s WeChat Work and Tencent Meeting, which ranked as the top three among business iOS apps in China as of Monday, according to App Annie.
Alibaba is the parent company of the South China Morning Post.Tencent has also blocked apps from other Chinese tech giants. Links from Taobao, Alibaba’s online marketplace, and Haokan, a short video app from Baidu, cannot be accessed on WeChat. In contrast, Tencent allows the sharing of links from JD.com and PDD pages, online marketplaces in which it owns a financial stake.
“Having more than 1 billion users, [WeChat] has a monopolistic position in the market,” said Wang Sixin, a professor at the Communication University of China who specialises in media policy and rules. “Under these circumstances, Tencent has to have legitimate reasons to block other apps, otherwise it’s taking advantage of its dominance to force out smaller rivals.”
In April 2019, a Chinese lawyer sued Tencent under the country’s anti-monopoly law, charging that the company’s actions infringed on his rights as a user. In December, the intellectual property court in Beijing heard the case, with Tencent representatives arguing that WeChat did not prevent users from sharing links and using the app on other platforms, Southern Metropolis Daily reported. The court has not yet reached a verdict.
Besides enterprise collaboration, Tencent and ByteDance are coming up against each other in other markets. Last week Tencent began testing a short video function for WeChat, a sector dominated by TikTok and Douyin, while ByteDance plans to
BEIJING (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of ethnic Uighurs were moved to work in conditions suggestive of “forced labor” in factories across China supplying 83 global brands, and Australian think tank said in a report released on Sunday.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) report, which cited government documents and local media reports, identified a network of at least 27 factories in nine Chinese provinces where more than 80,000 Uighurs from the western region of Xinjiang have been transferred.
“Under conditions that strongly suggest forced labor, Uighurs are working in factories that are in the supply chains of at least 83 well-known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors, including Apple, BMW, Gap, Huawei, Nike, Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen,” the think-tank said in the introduction to its report.
The ASPI report said the transfers of labor were part of a state-sponsored program.
It says the workers “lead a harsh, segregated life,” are forbidden to practice religion, and are required to participate in mandarin language classes.
It also says the Uighurs are tracked electronically and restricted from returning to Xinjiang.
China’s Foreign Ministry on Monday said reports the government had violated the Uighurs’ rights were untrue.
“This report is just following along with the U.S. anti-China forces that try to smear China’s anti-terrorism measures in Xinjiang,” spokesman Zhao Lijian at a regular press briefing on Monday.
The United Nations estimates over a million Muslim Uighurs have been detained in camps in Xinjiang over recent years as part of a wide-reaching campaign by Chinese officials to stamp out terrorism.
The mass detentions have provoked a backlash from rights groups and foreign governments, which say the arbitrary nature of the detentions violates human rights.
China has denied the camps violate the rights of Uighurs and say they are designed to stamp out terrorism and provide vocational skills.
“Those studying in vocational centers have all graduated and are employed with the help of our government,” said the Foreign Ministry’s Zhao, “They now live a happy life.”
The 83 global brands mentioned in ASPI’s report either work directly with the factories or source materials from the factories, it said, citing public supplier lists and the factories’ own information.
One of the factories, O-Film Technology Co Ltd, which has manufactured cameras for Apple Inc’s (AAPL.O) iPhones, received 700 Uighur laborers as part of the program in 2017, a local media article cited by the report said.
Apple referred Reuters to an earlier statement that said “Apple is dedicated to ensuring that everyone in our supply chain is treated with the dignity and respect they deserve. We have not seen this report but we work closely with all our suppliers to ensure our high standards are upheld.”
The other companies mentioned in the introduction to ASPI’s report – BMW (BMWG.DE), Gap Inc (GPS.N) , Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, Nike Inc (NKE.N), Samsung and Sony Corp (6758.T) did not respond to requests for comment on Monday.
O-Film Technology did not respond to a request for a comment either.
Volkswagen told Reuters in a statement that none of the listed companies is a direct supplier. It said the company holds “direct authority” in all parts of its business and “respects minorities, employee representation and social and labor standards.”
The report said a small number of the brands, including Abercrombie & Fitch Co [ANF.N], advised vendors to terminate their relationships with these companies in 2020, and others denied direct contractual relationships with the suppliers.
ASPI describes itself as an independent think-tank whose core aim is to provide insight for the Australian government on matters of defense, security and strategic policy.
Tennessee academic Hu was arrested on Thursday and charged with three counts of wire fraud and three counts of making false statements
The Justice Department said Hu hid his link to the Peking University while taking funding from the US space agency
Peking University in Beijing. Photo: Xinhua
US authorities on Thursday charged a professor at a university in Tennessee with fraud and false statements, saying he hid his link to a Chinese institution while taking funding from Nasa.
In the latest case related to US efforts to halt alleged unauthorised technology transfers to China, the Justice Department said Anming Hu hid his ties to Peking University of Technology while he taught and did research at University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
The indictment said that from 2016, Hu “engaged in a scheme to defraud the National Aeronautics and Space Administration” (Nasa) by hiding his affiliation with the Peking University.
“Federal law prohibits Nasa from using appropriated funds on projects in collaboration with China or Chinese universities,” the Justice Department said in a statement.
Hu was arrested on Thursday and charged with three counts of wire fraud and three counts of making false statements.
The wire fraud charges bring up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 each; the false statement counts each bring a maximum five years in prison.
Chinese man pleads guilty to photographing US Navy base
23 Feb 2020
The case was brought by the national security division of the Justice Department, which has taken aim over the past year at a number of Chinese nationals for allegedly stealing industrial and other secrets to boost China’s economy and defence sectors.
“This is just the latest case involving professors or researchers concealing their affiliations with China from their American employers and the US government. We will not tolerate it,” said John Demers, the assistant attorney general for national security.
US charges Harvard chemistry chair with lying about China ties
17 Feb 2020
Washington says Beijing both pressures and incentivises its nationals to bring back proprietary technology from the US.
Among those arrested for allegedly supporting Beijing’s illicit technology acquisition efforts is the chairman of Harvard University’s chemistry and chemical biology department.
Charles Lieber allegedly hid from Harvard and US authorities payments of $50,000 a month for his personal needs and $1.5 million in lab funding from a Chinese university.
An insect-killing fungus has been turned into a mass-produced biopesticide that will face its biggest challenge in East Africa
Current swarm has put 13m people at risk of famine and this will be the first large-scale test of its effectiveness
Young locusts in Somalia, where the fungus will be used to try to kill them. Photo: AP
Chinese factories are producing thousands of tonnes of a “green zombie fungus” to help fight the swarms of locusts in East Africa.
Metarhizium is a genus of fungi with nearly 50 species – some genetically modified – that is used as a biological insecticide because its roots drill through the insects’ hard exoskeleton and gradually poisons them.
In China it was named lu jiang jun, which means green zombie fungus, because it gradually turns its victims in a green mossy lump.
There are now dozens of factories across the country dedicated to producing its spores and despite the curbs introduced to stop the spread of Covid-19, many of them have resumed operations and are shipping thousands of tonnes to Africa.
Plague fears as massive East Africa locust outbreak spreads
11 Feb 2020
These factories are set up in a similar way to breweries, growing the spores on rice which is kept in carefully controlled conditions to ensure the correct temperature and humidity.
Each plant can produce thousands of tonnes of fungi powder per year, each gram of which contains tens of billions of spores.
“I am sending off a truckload right now. Our stock is running out,” said the marketing manager of a production plant in Jiangxi province. “Some customers need it urgently. They need it to kill the locusts.”
The need is particularly pressing in East Africa at the moment, where abnormally high levels of rainfall during the dry season allowed hundreds of billions of locusts to hatch in recent months.
So far the swarms have devastated crops in countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda and are moving on to neighbouring countries.
Up to 13 million people face the risk of famine in East Africa. Photo: AFP
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned the situation could be the “worst in decades” and the resulting famine may affect 13 million people and cause international food prices to soar.
Last week, Science magazine reported that the Somalian government, working with the FAO, was preparing to a metarhizium species that only kills locusts and grasshoppers in what it described as the largest ever use of biopesticides against the insects.
Scientists do not believe that the fungus will be enough to solve the problem – monitoring the outbreak and targeting their breeding grounds will be more important in the long-run – but if it proves effective it could be an important weapon to target future outbreaks.
It will take time to gauge the effectiveness, partly because each fungus will take several days to take effect and partly because of the sheer scale of the challenge; a single swarm in Kenya was estimated to contain between 100 billion and 200 billion locusts.
By fair means or fowl: how Chinese herdsmen are planning to stop a locust invasion
17 Apr 2018
The locusts have also swept eastward into the Middle East, travelling up to 150km (90 miles) a day, and are moving closer to China now that they have now reached some of its neighbours, including India and Pakistan.
At present China’s agriculture ministry believes some locusts may follow the monsoon into the country but “the chances of them causing damage is very small”.
Most scientists agree the swarms will not have lasting effect on food production but say developing countries can tap into China’s cutting-edge anti-locust technology.
Radar stations have been set up all the way along China’s western and southern borders to detect possible clouds of locusts, while unmanned devices lure the insects into traps to collect data about their species population and size.
A locust being eaten inside out by the metarhizium fungi. Photo: Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of Maryland
The data is streamed to the ministry’s programme command, which is responsible for the planning and coordination of the national efforts to prevent an outbreak.
The scientists also said that planes loaded with biological and chemical sprays were standing by.
Today, most locust outbreaks happen in developing countries that do not have advanced monitoring networks and some of them are unable to produce pesticides on a mass scale, according to Li Hu, an associate professor with the China Agricultural University in Beijing.
The Chinese locust treatment technologies were highly advanced, and usually cheaper than competing solutions from the West, he said.
Chinese researchers are now working with colleagues in other countries to help them solve the problem.
One disadvantage of the Chinese research is that it is mostly focused on local species, or the East Asia migratory locust. The desert locusts currently swarming East Africa have different genes and behaviour, and Li warned that some methods that work in China might not work elsewhere.
A giant indoor farm in China is breeding 6 billion cockroaches a year. Here’s why
26 Apr 2018
There were some sightings of the species reported in Yunnan and Tibet in the past, but they did not build up to large colonies, Professor Kang Le, lead scientist of the locust research programme with the Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, told China Science Daily last week.
The vast west China region of Xinjiang, which shares a border with eight countries, is currently too cold for a locust migration, but once temperatures start to rise in the spring it could see locusts swarming across the border with Afghanistan.
Shi Wangpeng, a senior government locust expert, told China Business Network on Sunday that China should be on high alert because many Afghan farms had already been affected.
“These areas share a long border with us, there are almost no barriers,” he was quoted as saying by the Shanghai-based magazine.
China has a long and bitter history of locust swarms, with more than 840 being recorded in the official records over the past 2,700 years.
One famine, in the year 628 was so devastating that even the Tang dynasty emperor Taizong was reported to have run short of food and resorted to eating the insects to survive.
China has a long and bitter history of locust swarms. Photo: AFP
This, in turn, means that China’s rulers have long been looking for innovative ways to solve the problem
In the past farmers tried remedies such as building huge fires, burying the insects in ditches or trying to kill them with sticks.
In one campaign organised by prime minister Yao Chong in 715, the farms collected 9 million sacks of dead locusts and managed to save a significant proportion of their crops, according to historic text.
In more recent times more sophisticated technologies have been deployed to tackle the menace.
Some researchers have spent decades chasing locust colonies and studying their individual and collective behaviour everywhere from coastal areas to inland deserts, and in 2014 Chinese scientists released the world’s most comprehensive genetic map of locusts.
Researchers have also developed chemical agents that can disorient swarms of locusts and disperse them.
Chinese scientists first became interested in the green zombie’s potential in the 1980s after discovering that South Pacific islanders had been using them to kill insects on coconut trees.
Research by US scientists confirmed its effectiveness in the 1990s and the Chinese started importing the fungus from the United States and Britain.
Their experiments led to the development of newer and deadlier strains and mass production started in the past decade.
Other fungi or bacteria can be used to fight locusts, and some laboratories are working with agricultural technology companies to modify their genes to turn them into more deadly or precise killers.
One genetically engineered species of microsporidia, another type of insect-killing fungus, for instance, can generate three times as many as the spores to those produced by nature species, according to a document from the China Association of Agricultural Science Societies last year.
While it remains to be seen whether the current swarms will reach China, these treatments have been effective in the past and there has not been a locust outbreak in China for a decade.
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.
Media caption Americans are taken from the docked ship to Haneda airport in Tokyo
Two planes carrying hundreds of US citizens from a coronavirus-hit cruise ship have left Japan, officials say.
One plane has landed at a US Air Force air base in California, and its passengers will be isolated at military facilities for 14 days.
There were some 400 Americans on board the Diamond Princess. The ship with some 3,700 passengers and crew has been in quarantine since 3 February.
Meanwhile, China reported a total of 2,048 new cases on Monday.
Of those new cases, 1,933 were from Hubei province, the epicentre of the outbreak.
More than 70,500 people across China have been infected by the virus. In Hubei alone, the official number of cases stands at 58,182, with 1,692 deaths. Most new cases and deaths have been reported in Wuhan, Hubei’s largest city.
In other developments:
In Japan, a public gathering to celebrate the birthday of new Emperor Naruhito later this week has been cancelled, due to concerns over the spread of the virus while organisers of the Tokyo marathon due to take place on 1 March are considering whether to cancel the amateur part of the race, reports say
In China, the National People’s Congress standing committee said it would meet next week to discuss a delay of this year’s Congress – the Communist Party’s most important annual gathering – because of the outbreak
At the weekend, an American woman tested positive for the virus in Malaysia after leaving a cruise liner docked off the coast of Cambodia
A Russian court has ordered a woman who escaped from a quarantine facility to go back and stay there until she is confirmed to be disease-free, Fontanka news agency reports. Alla Ilyina has until Wednesday to return
What’s happening on the Diamond Princess?
The cruise ship was put in quarantine in Japan’s port of Yokohama after a man who disembarked in Hong Kong was found to have the virus.
On Monday, Japanese officials said there were 99 new cases of infections on board the ship, bringing the total to 454 confirmed cases. It is the largest cluster of cases outside China.
A Russian woman who was on board and tested positive is thought to be the first Russian national to contract the virus after the two previous cases found in Russia were Chinese nationals, Reuters news agency reports.
She will be taken to a hospital for treatment, the Russian embassy in Japan said.
At least 40 US citizens who were on board are infected and will be treated in Japan, Dr Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases told US broadcaster CBS.
Image copyright AFPImage caption Those bound for the US left from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport
The two aircraft chartered by the US government left Tokyo’s Haneda Airport in the early hours of Monday. The second flight was due to land at another base in Texas.
More than 300 passengers are being repatriated voluntarily, the US state department said. Fourteen of them were reported during transit to have tested positive for the virus and were being kept separate from the other passengers, it said.
we would like to just finish the quarantine on the ship as planned, decompress in a non-quarantine environment in Japan for a few days, then fly back to the U.S. pursuant to our own arrangements. What’s wrong with that?
The smartphones were distributed so people could use an app, created by Japan’s health ministry, which links users with doctors, pharmacists and mental health counsellors. Phones registered outside of Japan are unable to access the app.
Other evacuation flights have been arranged to repatriate residents of Israel, Hong Kong and Canada. On Monday, Australia announced that it would evacuate 200 of its citizens too.
What is happening in China?
According to official figures for 16 February, 100 people died from the virus in Hubei, down from 139 on Saturday.
The Chinese authorities are tightening curbs on movement to combat the outbreak. People in Hubei province, which has 60 million people, have been ordered to stay at home, though they will be allowed to leave in an emergency.
In addition, a single person from each household will be allowed to leave the building or compound they live in every three days to buy food and essential items.
On housing estates, one entrance will be kept open. It will be guarded to ensure that only residents can enter or leave.
All businesses will stay closed, except chemists, hotels, food shops and medical services.
“The effects of epidemic prevention and control in various parts of the country can already be seen.”
The proportion of infected patients considered to be in a “serious condition” has dropped nationwide from more than 15% to just over 7%, according to China’s State Council.
Taiwan has reported a death from the illness – a taxi driver, 61, who had not travelled abroad recently but had diabetes and hepatitis B, Health Minister Chen Shih-chung said.
The minister said many of his passengers had come from China.
Outside China, there have been more than 500 cases in nearly 30 countries. Four others have died outside mainland China – in France, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Japan.
Meanwhile, a plane carrying 175 evacuated Nepalis, mostly students, has arrived in Kathmandu from Wuhan.
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.”
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s smartphone sales may plunge by as much as 50% in the first quarter, as many retail shops have closed for an extended period and production has yet to fully resume due to the fast spread of a new coronavirus, according to research reports.
The virus outbreak, which has killed more than 900 people and roiled China’s manufacturing industry, comes as top smartphone vendors such as Huawei had hoped China’s 5G rollout plans this year would help the world’s biggest smartphone market rebound after years of falling sales.
“Vendors’ planned product launches will be canceled or delayed, given that large public events are not allowed in China,” research firm Canalys said in a note last week.
“It will take time for vendors to change their product launch roadmaps in China, which is likely to dampen 5G shipments.”
Canalys expects China’s smartphone shipments to halve in the first quarter from a year ago, while IDC, another research firm that tracks the tech sector, forecasts a 30% drop.
Apple Inc said last week it is extending its retail store closures in China and has yet to finalise opening dates, as Foxconn, which assembles iPhones, struggles to fully resume factories.
Foxconn received government approval on Monday to resume production at a plant in the city of Zhenghzou, but its major plant in Shenzhen remain unopened.
Huawei, China’s biggest smartphone vendor, said its manufacturing capacity is “running normally” without specifying further. But like many other local peers, Huawei relies heavily on third-party manufacturers for production.
If factories cannot resume production to full capacity on time, this could delay brands’ ability to bring their newest products to market, analysts said.
Xiaomi Corp, Huawei, and Oppo, three of China’s top Android brands, are all expected to announce flagship devices in the first half.
Oppo told Reuters that while the impact of the virus will affect operations at some local factories, “manufacturing capacity can be guaranteed effectively” thanks to its plants overseas.
Xiaomi did not respond to requests for comment.
“The delays in reopening factories and the labour return time will not only affect shipments to stores, it will also affect the product launch times in the mid- and long-term,” Will Wong, an IDC analyst, said.
Globally, smartphone production will decrease by 12% in the March quarter to a five-year low of 275 million units, research firm TrendForce said on Monday. It revised down iPhone production by 10% to 41 million units, while Huawei’s output forecast was cut by 15% to 42.5 million phones.
Samsung Electronics Co, the world’s top smartphone maker, is seen the least affected by the virus outbreak as its main production base is in Vietnam, the report said, lowering its production forecasts by just 3% to 71.5 million units.
(Reuters) – India and Brazil have signed 15 accords aimed at forging closer ties between the two emerging market giants across a range of sectors, especially defence, both countries’ leaders tweeted on Saturday.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro took to social media to hail the closer cooperation and agreements struck during Bolsonaro’s official visit to India.
“Several agreements signed in infrastructure, justice, science and technology, agriculture, oil exploration, mining, health, culture and tourism,” Bolsonaro tweeted, adding: “The world’s confidence in Brazil is back!”
For his part, Modi tweeted: “India and Brazil are focussing on expanding cooperation in the defence sector,” adding that the two countries share “immense synergies” on several key issues such as the environment and fighting terrorism.
Separately, Brazil’s foreign minister Ernesto Araujo tweeted that the 15 accords signed by the two countries represent a move “against the structures of globalist thought”.
“Brazil is rising to be a great among the greats,” he tweeted.
Image copyright STRDEL
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 