News

In this week’s newsletter: American universities and legislators are blocking access to the China-owned app over privacy concerns – but fans say the choice should be theirs
The US battle with TikTok over data privacy concerns and Chinese influence has been heating up for years, and recent measures have brought college campuses to the forefront - with a number of schools banning the app entirely on campus wifi. Students have responded, of course, on TikTok. Taking advantage of viral sounds, they at their favourite app being blocked at universities like Auburn, Oklahoma and Texas A&M in the past few months. “Do they not realize people in college are actually adults?” one user wrote. “We should make our own independent decision to use TikTok or not,” another said.
But how did we get here?

For years, Beijing has thrown its wealth and weight across the globe. But its experience in the Solomon Islands calls into question its approach to expanding its power.

January 1938: Reports from Shanghai are suppressed by the Imperial Japanese Army, provoking a diplomatic protest
From our correspondent22 January 1938

Two connected attacks in Half Moon Bay on Monday killed 7 people just days after another shooting in Monterey Park killed 11.

Perhaps humbly anticipating a slightly less prestigious premiere than in competition at Sundance, Randall Park’s “Shortcomings” opens with an amusingly broad parody of ...

An Asian American Jewish group, Lunar Collective, plans an online event in response to the mass shootings in California.

Also, New Zealand’s next leader and a Lunar New Year travel surge in China.

From climate change to women’s rights, what effect will the demographic time bomb at the heart of China’s economy have?
China has entered a period of “negative population growth”, an important moment in the history of the country. As recently as 2019, the UN projected the population would peak in 2031-32, but despite major government efforts to reverse the trend, what is expected to be a long period of population decline.
The ongoing shift in demographics could have a profound effect on everything from how the economy operates to Xi Jinping’s legitimacy. The Guardian spoke to experts about the implications for everything from climate change to the Chinese Communist party.

Gun violence is the curse America has wished upon itself, and no one is immune to it, writes Jeff Yang after the Lunar New Year weekend mass shooting in Monterey Park, California.

Two mass shootings in two days in California kill at least 18 people right at the beginning of Lunar New Year.

Gun violence is the curse America has wished upon itself, and no one is immune to it, writes Jeff Yang after the Lunar New Year weekend mass shooting in Monterey Park, California.

For many, the celebration of the Lunar New Year is now clouded by heartbreak after eleven people were killed in a mass shooting in Monterey, California on Saturday night.