Tibet

As Beijing prepares to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, the spectre of human rights violations in Xinjiang looms large, with campaigners clamouring for the Games to be used to pressure Beijing. Zaobao correspondent Yang Danxu finds out how China is planning to handle the situation.

Even though the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China will only be held in 2022, already there have been changes made this year to the top leaders of several provinces in China. More are expected in the coming months, with hot seats in Jiangsu, Shandong, and Henan — the three major provinces with larger economies and population size — closely watched. Zaobao correspondent Yang Danxu looks at the implications of this exercise in bringing in new blood.

Following the Chinese government’s poverty alleviation policies, Tibetans seem to be leaving their traditional livelihoods behind and carving out new lives. How is rapid modernisation affecting Tibetan traditions and culture? Are the two mutually exclusive and a choice that the Tibetans can make for themselves? How do Beijing’s Tibet policies fare, and what criticisms do they face? Zaobao correspondent Yang Danxu joins a government-organised press tour of Tibet to find out.

From the signing of the 17-point agreement, or in full, the Agreement of the Central People’s Government and the Local Government of Tibet on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet, to the inaugural meeting of the Preparatory Committee for the Autonomous Region of Tibet held at Lhasa Hall, Tibet’s first auditorium, historical photo collector Hsu Chung-mao offers a glimpse of Tibetan history during the early 1950s.

Zhou Nongjian observes that there was a large slate of older candidates in this year’s US elections including incumbent President Trump who is 74 and President-elect Joe Biden who is 78. It is not an exact science of course, but he notes that this large crop of “oldies” is a metaphor for a greying America, or put bluntly, a country that is fast deteriorating and way past its prime. Notwithstanding, will China be fooled by such a veneer of weakness or stay watchful and humble?

US academic Han Dongping says that electoral politics in the US seems to have deviated from its original intent, which was to elect a leader that represents public opinion. The quest for power is now a game of thrust and parry by the elites and the wealthy, and is rarely in line with what the man on the street needs or wants. Is the “Trump or Biden” toss-up then just a false choice?

Nepal, an erstwhile land-locked country wedged between India and China, was famously called “a yam between two boulders” by the founder of modern Nepal, King Prithvi Narayan Shah. It has always had limited options in terms of foreign policy, but refusing to let geography dictate its fate, it is placing a larger bet on China with the hope that it will gain more leverage and avoid being squashed.