Patricia M. Thornton

@pm-thornton.bsky.social

Professor in the Politics of China at Dept of Politics & IR, Dickson Poon China Centre, University of Oxford and Merton College; British Association of Chinese Studies Council member. Mostly posting about China, HK, Taiwan politics

The Guardian: #China's Xi directs quashing of feminists even as he praises advances at global women’s summit in Beijing to mark the 30th anniversary of the historic UN’s world conference on women Activists in China silenced for ‘promoting gender antagonism’ www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

Xi directs quashing of Chinese feminists even as he praises advances at women’s conference

Chinese president is behind patriarchal turn in politics with activists silenced for ‘promoting gender antagonism’

theguardian.com

RFI: #China 's state-run CCTV: Sino-Russian relations are at their "best period in history" & have become "the most stable, mature & strategically significant relationship between major powers" "building a more equitable multipolar world order" 普京抵达天津出席峰会,俄中两国结成“统一战线”抗衡西方 www.rfi.fr/cn/%E4%B8%AD...

普京抵达天津出席峰会,俄中两国结成“统一战线”抗衡西方

据路透社援引中俄官方媒体报道,俄罗斯总统普京周日抵达中国北方港口城市天津,出席一场旨在抗衡西方全球影响力的区域安全峰会。

rfi.fr

China tests GFW: On Aug 20, 2025, the Great Firewall of #China (GFW) unconditionally injected forged TCP RST+ACK packets to disrupt all connections on TCP port 443. This incident caused massive disruption of the Internet connections between China & the rest of the world gfw.report/blog/gfw_unc...

Analysis of the GFW's Unconditional Port 443 Block on August 20, 2025

The Great Firewall of China (GFW) conducted a large-scale, unconditional block targeting TCP port 443 on August 20, 2025. This report documents the measurements and analysis we conducted of that event...

gfw.report

SCMP: #Trump ’s overhaul of State Dept may play into Beijing’s hands for decades US foreign service lost more than 3,000 employees & dozens of bureaus, leaving #China w/largest diplomatic corps “We just gutted [development programmes] ourselves, a huge win for China.” www.scmp.com/news/us/dipl...

Trump’s overhaul of State Department may play into Beijing’s hands for decades

US foreign service has lost more than 3,000 employees and dozens of bureaus, leaving China with largest diplomatic corps.

scmp.com

SCMP: #China aired a documentary last week showing how the Qing dynasty took back #Xinjiang from foreign forces in the late 19th century – Beijing’s latest effort to counter Western narratives and strengthen Chinese national identity in ethnic minority border areas. sc.mp/p0in0?utm_so...

China airs Xinjiang history documentary to counter Western narratives

It tells the story of Qing dynasty general Zuo Zongtang, who led army to recover the western region from foreign forces in the 19th century.

sc.mp

BBC: Massive protests in #Sichuan' s #Jiangyou #江油 city after violent video capturing school bullying incident goes viral on social media in #China More than 1,000 people gathered on the streets on 4 Aug & confronted local riot police in bloody clashes www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Protests in China over viral school bullying case

One protester in Sichuan province said “things got bloody” after police used batons and electric prods.

bbc.co.uk

SCMP": #Trump’s order to end ‘de minimis’ tariff break expands from #China to rest of the world Duty-free exemption on small packages worth $800 or less fuelled China’s dominance in the industry – but the model is now under threat sc.mp/akxmu?utm_so...

Trump’s order to end ‘de minimis’ tariff break expands from China to the world

Duty-free exemption on small packages worth $800 or less fuelled China’s dominance in the industry – but the model is now under threat.

sc.mp

SCMP: Xi tells visiting #EU leaders that Europe should make “the right strategic choice” & enhance cooperation w/ #China for global “stability,” during mtg with European Council President Antonio Costa & European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Beijing sc.mp/p784l?utm_so...

China, EU need to make the right choice as ‘2 big guys’ on world stage: Xi

Relationship is at an ‘inflection point’, von der Leyen tells Chinese leader as 25th China-EU summit begins in Beijing.

sc.mp

SCMP: On July 9, 2024, US's #OpenAI blocked developers in #China from using its closed-source #ChatGPT models. But w/the launch of #DeepSeek’s #OpenAI, the #open-source mvmt started by Chinese firms sent shock waves through Silicon Valley & Wall St, winning hearts & minds sc.mp/p11mt?utm_so...

How open-source AI is helping China win hearts and market share

China’s free-for-all AI models, developed by firms like DeepSeek and Alibaba, present a viable alternative to US closed-source systems.

sc.mp