China Moves to Replace Ethnic Mongolians in Education Sector With Han Chinese

The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has stepped up moves to eliminate the Mongolian language in schools in its northern region of Inner Mongolia, ordering Mongolian-medium primary schools to switch to Chinese-medium teaching by the third grade, RFA has learned. The move comes after local education authorities quietly ordered Mongolian-medium schools in the region to begin switching to Chinese-medium classes in late August, sparking a regionwide protest and class boycott that saw thousands of ethnic Mongolians arrested in the crackdown that followed.

Now, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region government has ordered Mongolian-medium primary schools to end all Mongolian-medium teaching by the third grade, delivering all lessons in Chinese. Ethnic Mongolians holding official posts in school CCP committees and educational and cultural institutions are already being replaced with majority Han Chinese officials, according to Tie Mulun, a Japan-based member of the exile group Great Hural Assembly of Southern Mongolia.

Tie said the authorities have "various plans for the mandatory promotion of Chinese culture" to be implemented in 2021.

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Hong Kong Activist Agnes Chow Moved to Top Security Prison: Report

Authorities in Hong Kong have transferred 24-year-old democracy activist Agnes Chow to a top-security prison that places Category A prisoners convicted of violent crime in solitary confinement, according to the city's Apple Daily newspaper.

Chow was sentenced to seven months' imprisonment in Dec. 2 after pleading guilty to charges relating to "illegal assembly" linked to protests outside Hong Kong's police headquarters on June 21, 2019. She was taken after sentencing to the medium-security Lo Wu Correctional Institution near the border with mainland China. But the Apple Daily cited sources as saying that she has since been transferred to the Tai Lam Women's Correctional Institution, a Category A facility.

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Tech to remain a tug-of-war between China and US in 2021 with Biden seen roping in allies to challenge Beijing on chips, apps, 5G and AI

If 2020 was  tumultuous for China’s tech sector, 2021 could be revolutionary. China will likely remain the global test bed for 5G services as network roll-out proceeds rapidly. It should also retain pole-position in the race for the world’s first sovereign digital currency. Achieving self-sufficiency in semiconductors will remain a work-in-progress though and tech investors may have some sleepless nights until the ramifications of Beijing’s new antitrust laws are clear.

Those hoping that the US-China tech war would follow the Donald Trump administration into the ash heap of history will be disappointed. The battle will continue although the tactics employed will likely change under a Joe Biden presidency, according to analysts the Post spoke to.

“The two countries will remain locked in a strategic competition for economic and technological dominance because [the idea of] being competitors rather than partners is now firmly held in both Beijing and Washington,” said Agathe Demarais, UK-based global forecasting director at The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

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China military: how Beijing is pushing forward its plan for a powerful, modern armed forces

Beijing wants the People’s Liberation Army to be ‘fully modernised’ by 2027, the centenary of its founding during the civil war. It’s been downsized and restructured, while the government spends more to develop advanced weapons and technologies like artificial intelligence. 

As regional tensions rise, a more assertive China has set a goal of turning its vast People’s Liberation Army into a modern fighting force by 2027, and a world-class military by 2050 – but how far has it come, and where is it headed?

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China’s military takes charge of war powers with new defence law

China has expanded the power of its
Central Military Commission (CMC) – headed by President Xi Jinping – to mobilise military and civilian resources in defence of the national interest, both at home and abroad. Revisions to the National Defence Law, effective from January 1, weaken the role of the State Council – China’s cabinet – in formulating military policy, handing decision-making powers to the CMC.

For the first time, “disruption” and protection of “development interests” have been added to the legislation as grounds for the mobilisation and deployment of troops and reserve forces.The legislation also specifically stresses the need to build a nationwide coordination mechanism for the mobilisation of state-owned and private enterprises to take part in research into new defence technologies covering conventional weapons, as well as the non-traditional domains of cybersecurity, space and electromagnetics.

Military and political analysts said the amendments aimed to strengthen the country’s military leadership under Xi, providing it with the legal grounds to respond to the challenges of accelerating confrontations between China and the US.

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Australia-China row: 'I'm Australian - why do I need to prove my loyalty?'

Earlier this year, a junior adviser for the Australian government, Andrew Chen*, visited the nation's Department of Defence for a meeting. As he and a colleague stepped into the building in Canberra, they pulled out their government IDs. Mr Chen was stopped by a guard, who took him aside. "They asked to take a photo of me - like a portrait - there in the lobby," he said. "And it was just me. The Caucasian colleague who was with me - he wasn't asked to do that," added Mr Chen, who is Chinese-Australian.

Mr Chen felt "awkward" as they took the snap, but he didn't want to cause a scene. Later, he asked colleagues if they had ever had the same experience - no-one had. "So it was just me, literally. It was clearly some sort of security procedure the guards were enforcing. They didn't offer any explanation."

The department told the BBC its security protocols were "agnostic of background or ethnicity". Mr Chen suspects that was not true in his case. He is among many Chinese-Australians who feel they are facing increasing scrutiny and suspicion - solely based on their heritage - as Australia hardens its views towards China.

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Covid: How the war on the virus attacked freedom in Asia

Civicus's latest report, "Attack on people power", says the Asia Pacific region has seen "attempts by numerous governments to stifle dissent by censoring reports of state abuses, including in relation to their handling of the pandemic". It cites increased surveillance and tracking - currently used for contact tracing - as well as the imposition of strict laws intended to stifle any criticism as some of the ways in which this happens. Given that many of these measures are introduced as a response to the pandemic, there is little to no resistance against them.

The Civicus report states that at least 26 countries in the region have seen harsh legislation, while another 16 have seen human rights defenders prosecuted.

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