‘They Feel Like They Can’t Go Home’
For Hui students of Islam in China and abroad, there are growing restrictions and rising fear.
In September 2014, while waiting for access to photograph Syrian refugee camps in Jordan, a Chinese photographer who calls himself “Ali” came upon a large group of students from his home country at a local restaurant. He knew that many young Chinese people study in countries like the U.S. and Australia, but he wondered why they’d choose to study in Jordan. The students explained that they were Hui, members of a group of roughly 10.5 million Chinese Muslims the People’s Republic of China designates as a distinct ethnicity. They were there to study Islam.
While Uighurs, members of a separate, Turkik-speaking, predominantly Muslim ethnic minority, have long faced discrimination and persecution, the Hui have until recently enjoyed a comparatively more comfortable place in majority Han society. They have had the latitude to practice their religion. As recently as a few years ago, the Chinese government showcased their culture and religion as a lure for investment and tourism. Today, Hui people face mounting restrictions and surveillance which, writes Emily Feng for National Public Radio, many fear may be a prelude to more draconian measures like those employed in Xinjiang. Meanwhile, an increasing number of individual testimonies suggest that Hui in Xinjiang, particularly those who have studied Islam abroad, have also been victims of mass incarceration…
Human Resources Both Drive And Limit China’s Push for Automation
As an aging population shrinks China's workforce, planners face challenges in training workers and upgrading tools.
For China’s government planners, one of the most important roles for artificial intelligence (AI) and automation is addressing looming challenges in the labor market. After nearly four decades of the one-child policy, China’s aging population is growing, while the number of working-age people (15-64) is decreasing. When the labor force was abundant, wages were low, helping drive the country’s rapid economic growth.
“But the demographic dividend began to vanish in 2016,” Shen Kaikai, a 44-year-old factory owner in China’s eastern Zhejiang province, said in an interview. His business is manufacturing accessories for diesel generators and exporting them, primarily across Southeast Asia. In 2016, the average hourly wage for factory workers in China hit U.S.$3.60, a 64 percent hike from 2011. Shen now writes paychecks to about 250 workers. But even as wages rise, Shen struggles to make new hires…
These Chinese Cities Depend on Dwindling Resources. Can They Survive?
Their growth was fueled by mining, logging, and other resource-dependent industries. Now that fuel is running out.
What West Virginia is to the United States, Shanxi Province is to China. Much of the coal that has powered the Asian nation’s industrial revolution was dug from Shanxi’s myriad mines.
But dependence on a single, non-renewable resource is risky business, so the province is actively exploring alternative enterprises, such as big data and tourism. In 2012, the Datong Coal Mine Group turned some of its depleted pits into museums, inviting visitors to don mining helmets and boots and explore the dystopian landscape.
The province has also begun deliberately dialing down its coal production, shuttering 88 of its 1,078 coal mines since 2016. Thousands of miners have lost their jobs in the process, but officials say the painful transition is necessary to avoid even more dire consequences down the road…
Ou Chen’s Good Run
A Kenyan sports agent wins in China.
In 2011, a college student named Obed Tiony took a break from his studies in Economics at Shanghai University to go for a run. He registered for a half marathon in the nearby city of Suzhou, ran the race, and came in second. Tiony had arrived one month earlier from his home in Eldoret, Kenya, the hometown of many of his country’s best athletes. The race gave out cash prizes and Obed pocketed 10,000 RMB (roughly U.S.$1,500).
In the years since, China has seen a surge of enthusiasm for marathons and other running events. According to the Chinese Athletic Association (CAA), which is the national sport association administering athletics, in 2017 Chinese cities hosted more than 1,000 large-scale road and cross-country races. While China still has far fewer competitive runners than the U.S. (where almost 17 million people finished road races in 2016), the number of Chinese racers has risen dramatically, from 400,000 in 2011 to 4.98 million in 2017—a phenomenon that Chinese media call a “marathon fever.” Tiony, now a graduate student in International Finance, couldn’t enter every race himself, but three years after his initial run he found he could still enjoy a share of the marathon fever’s spoils…