China

The mass exodus for the holidays that bring Chinese families together is already underway. This year, a record 9.5 billion passenger trips are expected, 540 million by rail. With tickets hard to come by on the busiest routes on key days, the authorities are trying to stem the proliferation of travel agencies that exploit the imbalance between supply and demand.

In all the reports from Beijing's official media on the 20-year prison sentence handed down on 9 February to the Hong Kong entrepreneur, a public interview from 2019 is deliberately misrepresented. To justify the harsh sentence with words that the founder of Apple Daily never said. Instead, they are silent about what he said that day about the link between his Christian faith and the struggle for freedom and justice.

After five years, the landmark trial under the national security law ended. The founder of Apple Daily was charged with conspiracy and sedition. Chief Executive Lee praised the “severe” sentence that brings “relief to all”. Cardinal Zen was in the courtroom with Lay’s wife. Eight other defendants were also sentenced. Attention now turns to the trials of Chow Hang-tung, Lee Cheuk-yan, and Albert Ho.

Despite the tariff war in 2025, China broke through the $1 trillion mark in its trade surplus, 45% of which is now generated in Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America. However, this wealth is not driving domestic consumption, because the fall in producer prices in the name of competitiveness is also squeezing wages and incomes. This is an issue that the new five-year plan due in March does not seem likely to address.

At the Winter Olympics that open tomorrow, the Chinese team arrives with a record delegation and the desire to confirm its status as a new power in winter sports, earned in 2022 at Xi Jinping's Games. Among athletes, women outnumber men. The growing popularity of winter sports is also used as a model for the sinicisation of minorities.

A well-known reporter from Chengdu has been deprived of his freedom along with one of his colleagues for reporting on Chinese social media about the abuse of power by a local Communist Party official that led to a professor's suicide. Meanwhile, in Beijing, the secretary of the Chinese Communist Party is touting the ‘fight against corruption’ to justify the purges.

China is the main foreign investor in Uzbekistan, with large capital inflows for new projects, but the growing Chinese presence is causing great concern among farmers. Data from the Uzbekistan National Institute of Statistics last year counted 17,900 farms with foreign participation, of which almost 7,000 with Chinese capital

Prescribed by doctors for anxiety disorders, the drug use is raising questions among doctors due to its increasing abuse. Advertised in forums and private chats, it is presented as a "safer" alternative to other, more controlled, substances. The problem of limited responses to young people's psychological distress is compounded by the stigma that still discourages many of them from seeking help.

Bangladesh inks an agreement with China to manufacture UAVs, with technology transfer and the development of military infrastructure. Although Dhaka stresses the technology’s civilian use, New Delhi views the agreement as a strengthening Chinese military presence in a neighbouring country.

The decision to join UNCLOS comes after 40 years of delays, opening a new front with Thailand over the disputed oil fields off Koh Kood Island. In 2001, then Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra signed an agreement with his Cambodian counterpart Hun Sen, for joint exploitation, but this never materialised and is now contested by Bangkok. The issue ties in with the 2016 arbitration on China’s "nine-dash line” with which Beijing claims most of the South China Sea.

United Nations experts have spoken of a persistent pattern of forced labor imposed by the Chinese state on Uyghurs, Tibetans, Kazakhs, and Kyrgyz in Xinjiang and other provinces. Under the guise of “poverty alleviation” programs, millions of people are reportedly involved in coercive transfers, with serious consequences for fundamental rights, cultural identity, and religious freedoms. Beijing has rejected the accusations as unfounded.

Women's rights organizations have also long been targeted by Beijing's crackdown. As a result, opportunities for women in traditional newsrooms have been drastically reduced, while alternative online spaces remain under constant pressure. The cases of Haze Fan, editorial assistant for Bloomberg in Beijing, and Zhang Zhan, the blogger who reported on Covid in Wuhan, who has been re-imprisoned.