Newsletter Archive

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR contributor Lavender Au and Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curate the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. Carbon neutrality is rarely discussed within China. At the U.N. General Assembly last week, however, Xi Jinping made a high-profile pledge that China’s emissions would peak before 2030 and that the country would go carbon neutral by 2060. Ultimately, the pledge fits into a fundamental domestic objective in Beijing: energy security. Debate over energy policy in China centers around the country’s resilience against supply chain uncertainties. This year, for the first time, two Chinese ministries […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. African leaders used this week’s virtual United Nations General Assembly to call for international support to help their economies recover from the coronavirus pandemic, pressing for debt cancellation and up to $100 billion in annual support over the next three years. From a health perspective, the continent appears to have withstood the pandemic better than many experts predicted, registering just 5 percent of global cases and 3.6 percent of deaths. But economies across Africa have been battered by the extraordinary measures that […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR contributor Lavender Au and Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curate the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. TikTok was set to be taken off U.S. app stores this past weekend, but the news that the Chinese-owned app struck a tentative deal with Oracle and Walmart allowed it a one-week reprieve from President Donald Trump’s ban. The deal still must be formally reviewed by the Trump administration, and the Chinese government will need to approve it, too. China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian has branded the ban, and other moves against […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Human rights groups are demanding an independent investigation into apparent military abuses in Mozambique, after videos circulated recently showing men in state military uniforms executing a civilian and torturing suspected members of an Islamist militia in the country’s restive province of Cabo Delgado. There are fears that the images could stoke local grievances and generate support for the militants. Officials from Mozambique’s government have accused the militia of shooting the footage to undermine the military in Cabo Delgado. Fighting between the Islamist […]

Editor’s Note: Lavender Au is China Note’s new lead writer, curating the week’s top news and expert analysis on China every Wednesday with WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm. More than 1,000 Chinese students and scholars have had their visas to the United States revoked recently under a new Trump administration program that claims to target security risks and guard against espionage. The affected students largely hail from China’s seven major national defense colleges, which are directly subordinate to China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, receive funding from the military and work on military projects. But to call […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Facing record floods that have killed more than 100 people and displaced tens of thousands more, Sudan’s government just declared a three-month state of emergency. Already contending with COVID-19 and a flailing economy, a faltering response to this natural disaster threatens to further destabilize the country’s fragile transitional government. Unusually heavy seasonal rains across the region have caused the Nile River to rise nearly six feet in some parts of Sudan and brought floodwaters to 16 of the country’s 18 states. At […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. Authorities have detained at least 23 people in China’s Inner Mongolia region following protests last week against new rules requiring classes in primary and secondary schools to be taught in Mandarin, rather than Mongolian. Activists are warning of a broader campaign to chip away at Mongolian cultural identity, and based on recent reports from the region, a strict crackdown on ethnic Mongol communities is already underway. The “bilingual education” program in Inner Mongolia, announced just days before it was […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. In an effort to preempt a damning report on massive overpricing and potential fraud in the country’s $26 billion COVID-19 response, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa moved to crack down on corruption within the ruling African National Congress this week. Analysts see it as Ramaphosa’s attempt to finally seize control of a party plagued by graft and the legacy of his predecessor, Jacob Zuma. Following a weekend meeting of the ANC’s executive committee, Ramaphosa announced that party officials charged with corruption must […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. Guest contributor Thomas Lee wrote the lead story in China Note this week. Amid a global pandemic and a summer of natural disasters and social unrest in the United States, it might be easy to forget that the country is still locked in a destructive trade war with China. Not that China itself is far from the minds of the two major U.S. presidential candidates, especially President Donald Trump. During last week’s Republican National Convention, Trump not surprisingly went […]