Kinaforum

søndag 5. juli 2026

Torbjørn Færøvik: A Tibetan Rush-Hour Drama on New York's First Avenue

A rush-hour drama on First Avenue in New York: A man stops outside the UN headquarters, sets himself on fire and turns into a human torch. Police and emergency services are called, but arrive too late. Hours later, the man is pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital.

It happened three days ago. The man was identified as Lobsang Palden, 52, a prominent Tibetan independence activist who had lived in the United States for more than twenty years. In recent years he had worked as an Uber driver. His self-immolation is the first ever by a Tibetan on American soil. Will there be more? The incident has attracted international attention and stirred anxiety in the Tibetan exile community.

Before taking the fatal step, Palden streamed a live video on Facebook in which he urged his compatriots to stand together in the struggle for Tibetan independence. His sacrifice was intended as a response to China’s implementation, on July 1, of a new law on “ethnic unity and progress.” China officially recognises 55 ethnic minorities. They make up only nine percent of the population, while the dominant Han Chinese take the rest of the “cake.”

China’s military promotes 2 new generals after anti-corruption purge thins ranks

China’s military promoted two officers to the rank of general in what may be a precursor to a reorganization at the top following the removal of several of its leaders in a long-running anti-corruption drive.

The shake-up is believed to be part of an effort to reform the military and ensure its loyalty to China’s ruling Communist Party and the nation’s leader, Xi Jinping. It comes as Xi seeks to accelerate the modernization of the armed forces to stake out and defend China’s interests in the Pacific, including Taiwan and other territorial claims.

Xi, who is also head of the military, presented orders promoting Zhang Shuguang and air force commander Wang Gang to generals at a ceremony Friday. Zhang was also named the head of the division investigating corruption at the Central Military Commission, the military’s top body.

China's tech rise reshapes the global space race

Lai Kai-ying, the first female Chinese civilian to reach outer space, is currently on board China's crewed Tiangong space station, where she orbits the Earth 16 times a day, alongside two other Chinese astronauts. Tiangong is a unique microgravity laboratory for scientific experiments, designed to provide new insights into humanity's future.

Today, aviation and spaceflight are once again shaped by ideological rivalry, echoing the mid-20th-century space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. In the 21st century, however, Washington's primary competitor is no longer Moscow, but Beijing.

US space agency NASA intends to retire its landmark research outpost, the International Space Station (ISS), by 2032. When that happens, China will be the only country operating a permanently crewed orbital station.

EU targets Chinese imports amid trade talks

Every day, around 16 million small, low-value packages arrive in the EU, 91% of which come from China. Many of those parcels contain items that European shoppers order from cheap Chinese online shoppingplatforms such as Temu, Shein and AliExpress. Until now, parcels valued at less than €150 ($171) were exempt from customs duties.

However, the EU this week ended that exemption and imposed a €3 levy on low-value imports in a move to curb what it sees as unfair competition, and to keep products that do not meet the bloc's safety standards out of the European market.

"Temu and Shein often fail to comply with legal and regulatory requirements, introduce unsafe products into our market that may pose health risks, and are driving many domestic retailers to the brink of ruin," said Alexander von Preen, president of the German Retail Association (HDE).

China releases underground church pastor after months in detention

The founder of a prominent underground church in China has been released after months in detention, his family and a Christian rights group said. ChinaAid said Pastor Jin Mingri, also known by his English name Ezra Jin, landed in Los Angeles on July 4 after being held in detention centres in the southern Chinese city of Beihai since October.“ ChinaAid welcomes with profound gratitude the release of imprisoned Chinese house church pastor Ezra Jin, who arrived safely in Los Angeles on July 4, 2026,” the group said in a statement on Sunday.

Jin founded Zion Church in Beijing in 2007 and became one of the most recognisable figures in China’s underground Christian movement. The Zion Church is among the largest underground or house churches in China that are unregistered with authorities. They defy a requirement that believers worship only in registered congregations.

O Tsinghua – the long and winding road leads me to your door

“Do you have a plan B?” asked a family friend. Stupidly, we did not. Han Feizi Junior would be the second student from his mucky muck international school in Hong Kong to attend Tsinghua University. As bilingual as this school claims to be, English was still the default language and its graduates were funneled to the usual suspects – Ivy-plus, Oxbridge, near peers and wannabes. Chinese universities were not popular. Not even Tsinghua. Perhaps especially not Tsinghua.

China’s air-conditioned lesson for Europe’s killer heat wave

Europe’s scramble for Chinese air conditioners is not really a story about China, or even about trade. It is a story about what happens when climate change disruption arrives faster than housing policy, public infrastructure and industrial strategy can adapt.

The numbers from this summer’s record heat are striking. China’s air-conditioner exports to the European Union reached US$3.76 billion in the first half of 2026, up 43.2% year on year, with portable units surging more than 70%. Demand has been strongest for installation-light machines from Chinese makers such as Midea, Haier, Gree and Dreame.

China’s housing market free-falls as buyers wait for floor prices

China’s home prices continued to fall in the first half of 2026 as buyers held back, betting that values would drop farther. With sales volumes and prices both in decline, analysts see little sign of a near-term recovery.

Data released on Wednesday by the China Index Academy showed that secondary-market home prices across 100 major Chinese cities fell 0.42% month-on-month in June, to an average of 12,639 yuan (US$1,750) per square meter. Of those cities, 88 recorded declines while only 12 saw gains.

China tells its ethnic minorities to integrate or face consequences with sweeping new unity law

For years, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has pushed ethnic minority groups like Tibetans and Uyghurs to adopt an identity rooted in Chinese nationality and allegiance to the ruling Communist Party.

Now, that push has been codified into a sweeping new law that reaches into classrooms, neighborhoods and homes – and gives Beijing the right to target people outside of its borders that it believes violate its rules. The statute, officially known as the Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law, came into effect on July 1. It bans acts that “undermine ethnic unity or create ethnic division” among China’s 56 officially recognized ethnicities, which include a Han Chinese majority that makes up over 90% of the country’s 1.4 billion people.

‘This Land is My Land’ – Remembering Lhasang Tsering

It was late in the night of June 14, 1988, in Geneva. Lhasang Tsering and I had checked into a cheap hotel room. All the while, I was wondering how I should justify giving Lhasang Tsering, the president of TYC, a copy of the Strasbourg Declaration, which the Dalai Lama was due to announce the following day in Strasbourg.

When I look back on that night and consider the extent to which Lhasang Tsering would shape the debate over Tibet’s future in the years that followed—a debate that shook the Tibetan exile community—I am struck by how quietly it all began.

In the preceding weeks, my task as a volunteer at the Tibet Office had been to enter corrections for the final printed version of the Strasbourg Declaration. And there were quite a few corrections. Kelsang Gyaltsen, then the Dalai Lama’s representative in Switzerland, had been charged with preparing the print of the declaration together with a small offset printing shop near the office, at Waffenplatz in Zurich. Before leaving for Geneva, I took a copy for myself. I can still vividly remember the elegant printing in pastel yellow. Kelsang Gyaltsen had chosen glossy paper.

Erasing Uyghur, Tibetan and Mongolian Languages and Cultures and Mandarin Supremacy

China’s newly enacted Ethnic Unity and Progress Law deals a fresh blow to linguistic and cultural diversity in Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia, formalising the supremacy of Mandarin over Uyghur, Tibetan, and Mongolian languages in education and public life.

China’s National People’s Congress passed the Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress on 12 March 2026, with the legislation set to take effect on 01 July 2026. It legally embeds Xi Jinping’s assimilationist agenda, folding the country’s 56 ethnic groups into a single Party-defined “Chinese nation,” mandating Mandarin as the standard language nationwide, and reaching beyond China’s borders to assert authority over diaspora critics.

The law builds on a troubling trajectory already visible over the past decade. In Inner Mongolia, Beijing has progressively replaced Mongolian-language instruction with Mandarin-medium education, triggering widespread protests in 2020 that were swiftly suppressed.

Tibetan self-immolates before UN Headquarters as China unleashed its draconian ethnic assimilation law

Lobsang Palden, known by his activist name of Lobga Rangzen, has succumbed to his injuries a little over an hour after he staged a self-immolation protest in front of the UN Headquarters in New York city on Jul 2 evening in a scathing condemnation of Chinese rule in Tibet. The incident came a day after China brought into force its ethnic assimilation law under the misleading title of “Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law”, prompting worldwide protests by Tibetans and others and condemnations from the democratic world.

The most extreme form of political protest was meant to draw global attention to China’s ongoing policies in Tibet. The incident, which triggered a massive lockdown of the diplomatic compound, underscores the enduring desperation of the Tibetan diaspora, noted streamlinefeed.co.ke Jul 3.

Ethnic Unity: What Is China’s New Law?

A sweeping new Chinese law aimed at strengthening “ethnic unity” is drawing sharp criticism for accelerating the assimilation of ethnic minorities—most notably through expanded Mandarin-language requirements imposed on young children.

China officially recognizes 56 ethnic groups. While Han Chinese make up more than 90 percent of the country's population, many minority communities have historically maintained varying degrees of autonomy in education, including the use of native languages in schools and cultural instruction.

The Law on the Promotion of Ethnic Unity and Progress, which entered effect Wednesday, elevates Mandarin as the primary language of education and public life and is part of President Xi Jinping's broader push to "Sinicize" ethnic minorities in pursuit of a Chinese national identity.

Chinese National Charged for Trafficking Women from Asia in Boston Sex Ring

A Chinese national was arrested Wednesday on federal charges alleging she trafficked women from Asia to work in a prostitution ring operating out of apartments in Boston.

The suspect, Zengzeng Liu, 40, also known as "Bella," was indicted June 24 by a federal grand jury in Massachusetts on four counts of recruiting or persuading individuals to travel to engage in prostitution and three counts of using interstate or foreign communications to operate a racketeering enterprise, according to an affidavit filed Wednesday by an FBI task force member. The operation was uncovered in late 2025 after an FBI task force began investigating advertisements posted on a website known for facilitating prostitution.

From $71 Million to $39 Trillion—U.S. National Debt’s 250-Year Climb

America’s national debt has always reflected the trajectory of the nation itself—one rising as the other, at least economically, wavers—but rarely has that story been as stark as it is today. From a mere $71 million in the country’s early days to now more than $39 trillion on the eve of its semiquincentennial, the scale of U.S. borrowing has expanded exponentially and to a level almost beyond comprehension over two and a half centuries.

This 55,000-percent rise has been punctuated by wars, financial collapses and global shocks, before settling into periods of relative stability, only to climb again. And the history of U.S. debt displays a familiar pattern: spending in times of need and expansion, enabled by the country’s economic strength and its increasingly central position in the global financial system.

Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kee, seized by Chinese authorities in 2015, dies in Taiwan at 70

Lam Wing-kee, a former Hong Kong bookseller who became a symbol of resistance to Beijing’s crackdown on speech freedom after he was seized by Chinese authorities in late 2015, has died in Taiwan, the island’s official Central News Agency reported, citing an unnamed source.

The news agency didn’t give a cause of death but said the 70-year-old Lam had a cancer relapse last year and was admitted to MacKay Memorial Hospital in Taipei on Tuesday. He fell into a coma on Wednesday and died Thursday evening, according to the report. Lam, who was the manager of Causeway Bay Books in Hong Kong, moved to Taipei in 2019 over fears of legal troubles and reopened the bookstore under the same name in the Taiwanese capital in 2020.

Six generals among 13 to lose China’s national parliament seats for corruption

The military remains a primary target of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive and under it six senior People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officers have been removed from the country’s top legislative body in the latest episode. A late-night notice issued by the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee on Jun 26 said 13 members of the legislature had been removed and one had resigned, reported the scmp.com Jun 27.

While the NPC does not weild any power, as its role is to rubber-stamp party decisions every time, it is theoretically the country’s top lawmaking body and its membership is a matter of prestige and status in the country’s ruling echelon.

There had already been indications that some of the dismissed PLA commanders were under investigation, the report noted.

Torbjørn Færøvik: The Strait That Could Strangle China

“The people here have golden-brown skin, and the sunsets are very beautiful,” a Portuguese envoy reported from Malacca in 1541.

Thirty years earlier, the Portuguese had taken control of the trading city on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula. From there, they could enjoy the sight of the sunsets and the sailing ships gliding past in the tropical breeze.

Today, Malacca has lost its importance as a hub of shipping in Southeast Asia. But the Strait of Malacca is busier than ever. Last year, more than 100,000 large vessels passed through the narrow passage. It becomes narrower still when ships enter the Phillips Channel near Singapore. There, the fairway is only 2.8 kilometres wide. In other words, one of the world’s most important sea lanes is, at its narrowest point, no wider than the distance from Aker Brygge to Bygdøy.

Is it any wonder that leaders in Beijing, Tokyo and other capitals worry about what might happen if the Strait of Malacca, too, were drawn into a major conflict?