This week, NüVoices host and co-founder Joanna Chiu joins China human rights researcher Maya Wang to discuss the current state of China human rights advocacy amid Beijing’s growing transnational oppression and the US cut of international aid.
Joanna and Maya also discuss China’s latest approach to Xinjiang and other ethnic minorities, and the global rise of extremism and political polarisation. In a world of chaos, unreliable leadership and rising technological authoritarianism, what is the future of China human rights advocacy?
On the global rise of nationalism and authoritarian leadership:
“I think there’s a lot of similarities between Trump style and what is happening to other declining democracies 
— or backsliding democracies, even similar to, you know, Xi Jinping and Putin – there’s an affinity with them.
I think what is missing is really that to understand it’s not just the leaders are similarly authoritarian or really power hungry, but that the people underneath in these respective countries — and I focus on China and the US — actually are intellectually sharing similar ideas, despite that kind of nationalism that also pits them against each other.”
On surveillance technology and its role in state control:
“The technology itself, the hardware itself, is not as important. I do also think of the political, legal system that enables them to take place.
After I started working on surveillance, I get a lot of interior requests, especially by big American media, because I think there’s a lot of fear in the US, and which I think part of that has borne out is, you know, growing authoritarianism in the US itself.”
On hope:
“At the very least, I think people are standing on their feet thinking they’re just not, they’re just not the most prominent voices, or maybe they’re just coming into prominence these days.”
Shownotes:
Learn more about the Human Rights Watch and Maya’s reports here.
Self-care recommendations:
Maya: Regular exercise and adequate sleep
Joanna: Reduce screen time, play chess and Scramble
About our guest:
Maya Wang is an associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch. Wang has researched and written extensively on a wide range of issues in China including the use of torture, arbitrary detention, human rights defenders, civil society, disability rights, and women’s rights. She is also an expert on human rights in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet. In recent years, her original research on China’s use of technology for mass surveillance, including the use of biometrics, artificial intelligence, and big data, has helped galvanize international attention on these developments in China and globally.
About our host:
Joanna Chiu is the vice-chair and co-founder of NüVoices. She is the China Editor at Rest of World based in Vancouver, Canada. Most recently, she founded Nüora Global Advisors, a consultancy founded by veteran journalists and researchers with international expertise. She has more than 15 years of reporting and editing experience. Before joining Rest of World, she covered national and international news for the Toronto Star, and worked at Agence France-Presse, The Economist, Associated Press, and South China Morning Post prior to that. She is the author of China Unbound. She won the Kathy Gannon Legacy Award for Distinguished Reporting on China, and speaks English, Mandarin, and Cantonese. She holds a masters degree in journalism from Columbia University.