Kinaforum

tirsdag 10. februar 2026

A spiritual guru was jailed for rape and murder. He’s out on parole for the 15th time

With jarring regularity, the gates of an Indian high-security prison swing open for a prominent guru jailed for life for murder, freeing him to preach virtue to the millions of followers he holds in his thrall.

A flashy preacher with rock-star taste, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh was first jailed in 2017 on rape charges and convicted of murder two years later. Yet, he has been freed 15 times on parole, and so far has spent more than 400 days outside prison.

Indian history is filled with charismatic – and often controversial – figures who commanded huge devotion. But Singh’s recurring freedom is seen by many as a grim testament to the enduring power of spiritual influence in the world’s most populous country – a place where, critics say, the scales of justice can be tipped by the vast political reach and capital of these so-called godmen.

China’s Lunar New Year travel rush begins with record 9.5 billion trips expected

Liu Zhiquan was waiting for a 30-plus hour train journey to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, some 1,242 miles (2,000 kilometers) from Beijing, where he works in construction. He’s one of the hundreds of millions expected to travel to their hometowns as part of the world’s largest movement of humanity, or “chunyun” as it’s called in China, ahead of the Lunar New Year on Feb. 17.

“Things feel worse this year than last. The economy is bad and it’s getting harder to make money,” he said.

Liu chose a slower train to save money: a high-speed train would take just nine hours but costs more than twice as much. Nonetheless, he chose to make the 30-hour journey to be home for the festival, the one time of year workers across the country take breaks and spend time with their loved ones.

US Wins at Panama Canal—But China Eyes More Ports in Americas

Panama’s move to void two longstanding port concessions flanking the Panama Canal was a blow to Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison and a win for U.S. efforts to check Chinese influence in the Western Hemisphere.

Yet as CK Hutchison seeks to sell its majority shares in dozens of other port projects worldwide, China's COSCO—the world's fourth-largest shippingcompany—hopes to fill the void. If the state-owned shipping giant succeeds, security risks for the U.S. could climb at other ports in Latin American and the Caribbean, according to recent analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

China commands the world’s largest export machine and, through COSCO and other state-owned enterprises, holds stakes across a network of global ports that translate into structural influence in key maritime routes. A Newsweekinvestigation previously found associated risks including Beijing's political leverage in host countries or possible dual civilian and military use of infrastructure by the People’s Liberation Army.

She’s one of the world’s most powerful conservative leaders – and she just won again

It was a risky gamble to call a snap election – her career was on the line. But now Japan’s Sanae Takaichi is basking in the strongest majority for a Japanese government in more than 70 years.

Here’s how this unapologetic conservative, who Trump has lavished praise on, pulled it off. In the four months since becoming leader, she had skyrocketed in popularity, galvanized typically-disengaged young voters, and given a fresh new face to the country’s political landscape, which for decades was dominated by older men.

This mass appeal translated to a landslide victory on Sunday, securing Takaichi’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) a historic two-thirds supermajority in the lower house of parliament – the first time a single party has done so since World War II.

Hong Kong ex-publisher Jimmy Lai’s sentence raises international outcry as China defends it

Monday’s sentencing of Hong Kong democracy advocate and one-time media magnate Jimmy Lai brought an outcry from governments and rights groups. Chinese and Hong Kong authorities defended it, saying it reflected the spirit of the rule of law.

The 78-year-old Lai was sentenced to 20 years in prison after being found guilty in December of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and conspiring with others to publish seditious articles. His co-defendants, who entered guilty pleas to the collusion-related charge, received prison terms ranging from six years and three months to 10 years.

Some foreign governments called for the release of Lai, a British citizen. China’s Foreign Ministry maintained that Lai is a Chinese citizen and urged countries to respect its sovereignty.

South Korea is finally having more babies. But can it last?

Excited young couples roam a bustling convention center trying on baby carriers, testing strollers and learning the latest safety features of car seats. This scene in Seoul in January may seem totally contrary to the usual headlines from South Korea, of plummeting birth rates and a looming demographic crisis that also threatens to swallow neighboring Japan and China.

But against all odds, South Korea is finally having more babies. The numbers have been slowly ticking up for over a year – a rare bit of good news for a government that has spent billions of dollars for more than a decade encouraging people to do just that.

Whether it can last, however, is another matter.

In China, consumerism trumps nationalism despite tensions with the U.S. and Japan

In China, consumerism appears to outweigh nationalism regardless of how testy relations have become in recent diplomatic spats with countries like Japan and the United States.

It has been common practice for the ruling Communist Party to whip up nationalist sentiment and deploy propaganda condemning countries deemed to be violating China’s stance on territorial issues as Taiwan and Tibet. At times, Beijing targets companies that make ideological missteps in their maps or advertising.

In the past, friction with Japan and the United States has led to calls for mass boycotts, protests in the streets or even vandalism on embassies or restaurants. These days, pure nationalism appears not to resonate so much with Chinese consumers accustomed to making their own personal consumption choices.

Torbjørn Færøvik: Through the Khyber Pass - Babur and the Birth of the Mughal Dynasty

The gray stone of the narrow Khyber Pass has witnessed many dramas over the centuries. One of them took place 500 years ago – in 1526. That year Babur, a warrior from Central Asia, stormed through the mountain pass with his soldiers. Before him lay the vast Indian subcontinent. Babur knew it offered immense riches.

Could he succeed in conquering it?

Agriculture along the Ganges and the Indus yielded several harvests a year. In the capital, Delhi, the rulers lived in splendor and luxury. Compared with the drier lands of Central Asia, India appeared far more prosperous. In the sixteenth century the subcontinent was a major producer of cotton, silk, indigo, spices, sugar, and precious stones. Indian textiles were exported in enormous quantities to the Middle East, East Africa, and Southeast Asia, and silver flowed in as payment. Historians suggest that India at that time accounted for roughly a quarter of the world’s total production.

Les mer

Japan election: Sanae Takaichi set for landslide victory

Japan's nationalist ruling party won a sweeping majority in parliamentary elections on Sunday, projections showed, securing a strong new mandate for Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is expected to have won about 300 seats in the lower house of parliament, far exceeding the 233 seats required for a majority, national broadcaster NHK reported, basing projections on exit polls.

Together with its coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party (JIP), the LDP was projected to win 310 seats, NHK said, giving them a two-thirds majority.

"We received [voter] backing for Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's responsible, proactive fiscal policies and a strengthening of national defence capabilities," LDP secretary general Shunichi Suzuki told media.

Takaichi dissolved parliament in January and called snap elections, a gamble that she hoped would provide her and her struggling party with a stronger footing in parliament going into the new year.

Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi looks to translate her election gains into a new conservative shift

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s gamble that her personal popularity would lead to big election gains for her struggling party paid off hugely. On Monday, she began the process of translating that new power, made manifest in a two-thirds supermajority gained in parliamentary elections the day before, into what she hopes will be sweeping conservative legislation that will shift Japanese security, immigration, economic and social policies.

The first steps include reappointing her Cabinet and pushing forward on a delayed budget and the votes next week that will reelect her as prime minister.

Takaichi, in an interview with public television network NHK following her victory, said her efforts will make Japan strong and prosperous.

China critic and former media tycoon Jimmy Lai is sentenced to 20 years in a Hong Kong security case

Jimmy Lai, the pro-democracy former Hong Kong media tycoon and a fierce critic of Beijing, was sentenced on Monday to 20 years in prison in the longest punishment given so far under a China-imposed national security law that has virtually silenced the city’s dissent.

Lai, 78, was convicted in December of conspiring with others to collude with foreign forces to endanger national security, and conspiracy to publish seditious articles. The maximum penalty for his conviction was life imprisonment.

His co-defendants, six former employees of his Apple Daily newspaper and two activists, received prison terms of between 6 years and 3 months, and 10 years on collusion-related charges.

Lai smiled and waved at his supporters when he arrived for the sentence. But before he left the courtroom, he looked serious, as some people in the public gallery cried. When asked about whether they would appeal, his lawyer Robert Pang said no comment.

What to know about Jimmy Lai’s Hong Kong journey from media mogul and activist to convict

To his supporters, former Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai is a fighter for democracy. To the government, he is a traitor to his motherland. The 78-year-old outspoken critic of China’s ruling Communist Party was sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison for conspiring to commit sedition and collude with foreign forces.

Observers say his trial came to symbolize a crackdown that began in 2020 on press and other freedoms that has changed Hong Kong, the former British colony that returned to China’s control in 1997.

China's Mongolian Minority Facing Increased Pressure to Assimilate

Beijing long allowed Mongols in China to live out their cultural identity. That, though, is now over. Xi Jinping has decided that they must assimilate into the culture of the Chinese majority. The new era, that is the term used by Chinese propaganda to describe Xi’s regency.

Ever since China’s head of state and party leader rose to power in 2012, pressure has been rising on the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia, where the Gegen Miao Monastery is located. Almost 300 years old, it is an important place for the local population – and its abbot is an important man: Because of his religious learnedness, Laobuseng Jinpa is regarded as a "living Buddha.” But in Xi’s China, no such honorary title exempts him from the duty of political obedience.

Economic nationalism giving rise to a zero-sum world

The world we inhabit today bears little resemblance to the one imagined by the architects of the global economy at the end of the 20th century. Back then, the dismantling of trade barriers was celebrated as a gateway to shared prosperity.

Today, new walls are rising, not of concrete, but of tariffs, subsidies and export bans. The grand narrative of seamless globalization now sounds increasingly like a relic from a bygone era.What we are witnessing is not a temporary disturbance, but a tectonic shift in economic governance, one powerful enough to alter the strategic orientation of nations worldwide.

What began as sharp, provocative tweets during Donald Trump’s first term in office is proving not to be a historical anomaly, but rather the ignition point of a deeper, long-simmering transformation. To single out Trump alone, however, would be intellectually dishonest. Beneath the rhetoric of “America First” lay a profound unease over China’s rise and its perceived manipulation of the international economic system.

Delhi High Court reaffirms passport right of Tibetan citizens of India

The Delhi High Court has on Feb 3 upheld its series of previous decisions since 2010, saying Tibetans born in India on or after Jan 26, 1950, and before Jul 1, 1987, are citizens by birth under the country’s citizenship law. Crucially, it has rejected the contention of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) that once registered as a “Tibetan Refugee” and issued with an identity Certificate (IC), such a Tibetan should be considered to have voluntarily renounced their Indian citizenship.

IC is the travel document issued by the government of India to Tibetans registered as foreigners. But it is not universally recognized by immigration authorities at international airports, with even those with visas issued on them being sometimes turned back.

The High Court has also rejected the MEA’s submission that it was “under process” to challenge a bunch of orders pertaining to “Tibetan Refugees”, where the Delhi HC had ruled in favour of them, declaring them as Indian nationals, dating back to 2010.

Takaichi’s ruling party on path to winning a majority in Japan’s lower house vote, exit polls say

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi ‘s governing party is almost certain to win a single-party majority in a key parliamentary election Sunday, NHK public television and other major networks say, citing their exit polls.

NHK says Takaichi’s governing coalition led by her Liberal Democratic Party could also win more than two-thirds of the 465-seat lower house, the more powerful of the country’s two-chamber parliament. That’s a level that would allow the governing bloc to dominate house committee chairs to steer policy and budget bills.

NHK, citing results of early vote counts, said the LDP alone secured 244 seats, surpassing a majority at 233. The huge jump from the pre-election share may allow Takaichi to make progress on a right-wing agenda that aims to boost Japan’s economy and military capabilities as tensions grow with China and she tries to nurture ties with the United States.

he facts — and frictions — of the U.S.-India trade deal

“It’s easier said than done,” is a phrase I have now heard several times from different experts as we discussed the feasibility of the terms of the U.S.-India trade deal. Less than a week after the India-EU trade pact was finalized, U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday announced in a post on Truth Social that he had agreed a deal with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling him a “great friend.”

Trump said Washington would cut tariffs on Indian goods to 18% from 50%, while New Delhi will lower duties on U.S. goods to zero, replace Russian oil with supply from U.S. and Venezuela, open sensitive markets such as agriculture and buy $500 billion worth of American goods.

Modi, in his response on X, expressed delight over the lowering of tariff of 18%, thanked Trump and extended support for his “efforts for [global] peace.”

Chinese solar stocks rally on reports Elon Musk’s Space X, Tesla staff visited suppliers

Shares of Chinese solar panel makers surged Wednesday after local media reported that staff linked to Elon Musk had recently visited several photovoltaic suppliers in China, sparking speculation that a high-profile customer could boost demand for advanced products.

The reports fueled talk of a potential business partnership and came days after Musk said he planned to build large-scale solar cell production capacity in the U.S. Shares of China-based JinkoSolar, one of the world’s largest panel producers, jumped as much as 20% in early trade, hitting their daily limit, according to LSEG data. Jolywood Suzhou Sunwatt, which makes photovoltaic auxiliary materials, also saw its shares jump 20%.