Jewher Ilham has not heard from her father since 2017. Her dad, Ilham Tohti, is an economics professor and prominent Uighur intellectual in Xinjiang, China. He ran a website, UighurOnline, that focused on issues pertaining to the Muslim ethnic minority group. Chinese authorities repeatedly shut down the website. Jewher says the family received death threats. Chinese authorities also disappeared her father multiple times before detaining him in 2014 and quickly finding him guilty on separatism charges. He was sentenced to life in prison. At first, Jewher told me, because her father was a political prisoner, the family could visit him every few months. But then the Chinese government cut off access entirely. Jewher is in the United States; she still has extended family in Xinjiang, the northwestern region in China where most Uighurs live. She does not talk with them, either. “If they talk to me or if they receive a phone call from me, I don’t think anything good will happen to them,” she...

Though India lags far behind China in several fields, the communist country is getting wary of India's gains in foreign direct investment (FDI), technology and manufacturing. India's closer military ties with the U.S. is another major concern of China. China has realised that India holds great potential and if it is able to tap it effectively, India could emerge as a major threat to China. Below are a few reasons why China is scared of India: Foreign direct investment On Monday, President Xi Jinping vowed to open up China like never before. China faces dwindling foreign exchange reserves when India is agressively pushing itself as a destination for foreign investment. Premier Li Keqiang has annnounced that foreign firms would be treated the same as domestic firms when it comes to licences applications, standard setting, government procurement and would enjoy same preferential policies under Made in  China 2025 initiative. China is scared it might lose FDI race to India. In 2015...

The sweeping new national security law that China imposed on Hong Kong, aimed at stamping out opposition to the ruling Communist Party in the former British colony, is as “devastating” as some critics feared, a human-rights activist said on Wednesday. Conceived in secrecy and passed on Tuesday without serious input from Hong Kong authorities, the law sets up a vast security apparatus in the territory and gives Beijing broad powers to crack down on a variety of political crimes, including separatism and collusion. In what initially appeared to be an early test of the law, a man was arrested on Wednesday after he unfurled a Hong Kong flag during demonstrations and the police said on Twitter that he had been detained for “violating the  # NationalSecurityLaw .” It was “the first arrest made since the law has come into force,” the police said. But a closer look at the banner appeared to show words that translated to “No to” in small letters and “Hong Kong Independence” in bigger type. ...