Autocratic assertion meets democratic dereliction
The coronavirus pandemic must not be used as a pretext for authoritarian states to trample over individual human rights, or repress the free flow of information, the UN secretary general… Read more »
Search Results for: covid
Pandemic of power grabs: Autocrats’ opportunity in disaster
Even as some leaders exploit the COVID-19 pandemic, their inability to deal with popular suffering will act against the myth that they and their regimes are impregnable, the Economist observes…. Read more »
Friends and Enemies: Understanding Chinese political interference
United States intelligence agencies have assessed that Chinese operatives helped push disinformation about #Covid-19 messages across platforms, according to six American officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to… Read more »
Russian, Chinese, Iranian disinformation narratives echoing each other
China, Iran and Russia are using the coronavirus crisis to launch a propaganda and disinformation onslaught against the United States, the State Department warns in a new analysis, POLITICO’s Betsy… Read more »
‘Dynamism Despite Disruption’: Will pandemic undercut or rejuvenate civil society
In many countries, restrictive laws already had been squeezing civil society before the Covid-19 crisis hit. The pandemic provides a convenient cover for governments to further tilt the balance of power… Read more »
Autocrats present liberal democracies with an ideological challenge
The remote northern Russian region of Komi is a coronavirus petri dish for the horrors lying in wait for the world’s largest country. Amid growing evidence that the pathogen had… Read more »
China’s propaganda aims to obscure ‘crime against humanity’?
China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, has used the coronavirus pandemic to shore up his political power at home, but the tools the Communist Party has exploited to do this are threatening… Read more »
CCP rule by fear endangers Chinese citizens – and the world
As China tames the coronavirus epidemic now ravaging other countries, its success is giving rise to an increasingly strident blend of patriotism, nationalism and xenophobia, at a pitch many say… Read more »
Gangnam Smile: North Korean defectors make history
The most important thing about South Korea’s legislative elections this week is the fact that they happened at all, notes John Delury, a professor of Chinese studies at Yonsei University,… Read more »
Pestilential ‘battle of narratives’ a return to ideologies?
Surely among the strangest and least expected outcomes of the Great Pestilence is that the country that hatched the virus looks as though it will now enjoy the technological and… Read more »