Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. A court in eastern China on Monday sentenced a Chinese-born Swedish bookseller to 10 years in prison for “illegally providing intelligence” to overseas parties. Gui Minhai’s case drew international attention to the lengths that Beijing is willing to go to silence criticism, even from abroad, while souring ties between China and Sweden. Gui was part-owner of Mighty Current Media, a Hong Kong-based publishing house known for its politically sensitive books about top Chinese Communist Party leaders. In 2015, he [...]
Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Swarms of desert locusts that have already razed pastures and croplands across Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya continue to spread throughout East Africa, jeopardizing the food security of up to 20 million people. Just a small swarm of the insects can eat as much food as 35,000 people daily. The swarms, which can contain as many as 80 million adult locusts and travel up to 80 miles each day, have now moved south and west into Tanzania, Uganda and war-torn South Sudan, while [...]
Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. When China expelled three Wall Street Journal reporters from the country this week, it justified the move as a response to an op-ed in the Journal that Beijing deemed racist. But the day before the journalists’ press credentials were revoked, the State Department placed new restrictions on the activities of Chinese state media outlets in the United States. Under the surface of this apparent tit-for-tat is a growing unease in Washington over the lack of reciprocity in the U.S.-China [...]
