While the annual Two Sessions are supposed to be a major event in China’s calendar, Zaobao correspondent Yang Danxu notes that this year’s meetings seem even more staid than usual because of the elephants in the room, not least Ukraine. Coupled with delegates delivering public lines, China’s deliberative process remains more than a little opaque despite the media attention.

It seems that the Chinese and foreign media have very different approaches to covering the Beijing Winter Olympics — Chinese journalists want to portray the favourable side of the Games while foreign journalists tend to take a more critical stand in focusing on problems. Zaobao correspondent Yang Danxu examines this phenomenon.

Local governments in China are facing a problem of not having enough in their coffers, leading to various measures such as a hiring freeze in Hegang city. Corruption also remains a problem, with some officials using their authority and influence to line their own pockets. Zaobao correspondent Yang Danxu notes that there is a danger of such debt issues becoming a risk to social stability.

In the face of greater challenges in containing Covid-19, China seems to have tweaked its zero-Covid strategy in Xi’an to that of “zero cases in communities”. Even so, the situation since a lockdown started on 23 December 2021 seems chaotic. What else needs to change as authorities tailor their approach to different cities and situations? Zaobao correspondent Yang Danxu examines the issue.

The Communist Party of China’s 20th Party Congress will be convened next autumn, during which a new leadership team will be in place. Currently, the party committees of the 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities are undergoing leadership overhauls and electing delegates to next year’s congress as well. What are some common traits of the stand-out new leaders?

The US government has seemingly pulled the rug from under the feet of SenseTime by putting it on a blacklist just a week before its planned IPO, effectively blocking US funding from the AI company. But while the official reason is human rights issues in Xinjiang, perhaps the real reason is the ongoing tech competition between the US and China. If so, it seems that the US has found another lever with which to pressure China — curtailing investment.

During the 2008 Summer Olympics, Beijing opened its doors and embraced the world to the Olympic countdown song of Beijing Welcomes You, showing its bashful sincerity and mustering its courage to take the first step in the hope of being accepted as a member of the international community. But 13 years later when it is set to host the Winter Olympics, it seems to be shutting its doors to the outside world. Is this simply due to pandemic containment measures alone?

The recent virtual summit commemorating 30 years of ASEAN-China dialogue relations was held without a representative from Myanmar, the second time in a month that Myanmar was absent from the ASEAN family. The Myanmar issue is likely to pull ASEAN on many sides in the days to come, but the fact that the summit went on and concluded with some deliverables speaks for the strength of ASEAN-China relations.

Yang Danxu observes that the recent virtual meeting between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping is a good start, but deep-seated issues remain, not least the real and present issue of Taiwan.