US Secretary of State Antony Blinken hosted the foreign ministers of the rival nations.

“The United States is committed to the peace negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan,” Blinken said before the meeting. “Direct dialogue is the best way to a truly durable peace, and we are very pleased to support that.”

An American official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the meeting was less about peace negotiations in the full sense of the term, and more about providing an opportunity for the warring parties to meet and talk.

A week ago, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev “agreed not to use force” to resolve their dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh territory, during a summit in Russia hosted by President Vladimir Putin.

However, in the early hours of Monday, Azerbaijani forces opened fire on Armenian positions in the eastern sector of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, the defence ministry in Erevan said in a statement, adding there had been no casualties.

Meanwhile, Azerbaijan’s defense ministry accused Armenian forces of shooting at the positions of Azerbaijani troops stationed at several locations on the frontier.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday called on both parties to “refrain from the actions and steps that could lead to an escalation of tensions.”

Erevan and Baku fought two wars over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh — in autumn of 2020 and in the 1990s.

Six weeks of fighting in 2020 claimed more than 6,500 lives before a Russian-brokered truce ended the hostilities.

Under the 2020 deal, Armenia ceded swathes of territory it had controlled for decades, and Russia stationed peacekeepers to oversee the fragile ceasefire.

There have been frequent exchanges of fire at the Caucasus neighbors’ border since the 2020 war.

In September, more than 280 people from both sides were killed in new clashes.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, ethnic Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan. The ensuing conflict claimed around 30,000 lives.

Army, navy and national disaster response force teams continued their search while locals gathered on the banks of the Machchhu river in Modi’s home state of Gujarat.

The colonial-era suspension foot bridge in Morbi was packed with sightseers – many in town to celebrate the Diwali and Chhath Puja festivals – when it gave way on Sunday evening, sending people plunging about 10 metres (33 feet) into the water.

A senior police official told Reuters that about 200 people were on the bridge when it collapsed. Local municipality officials said tickets for about 400 people had been sold, although not necessarily to be on the bridge at the same time.

“The prime minister said the need of the hour is to conduct a detailed and extensive inquiry which will identify all aspects relating to this mishap,” Modi’s office said in a statement as he saw the scene of the disaster.

“He also added that the key learnings from the inquiry must be implemented at the earliest.”

Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, from the Congress party, said earlier he refused to politicise the incident, but in the capital New Delhi dozens of protesters demanded the resignation of the Gujarat state chief and called for more compensation.

The protesters called for compensation of 2 million rupees ($24,000) for all victims – the injured and the families of those killed. So far the state and central governments have offered 600,000 rupees ($7,000) for the kin of those who lost their lives.

Local residents at the scene on Tuesday told Reuters they feared the death toll could rise further.

GT Pandya, a senior administrative official in Morbi, said a person who was injured had died from their injuries on Tuesday, taking the toll to 135. One person was still missing according to the authorities’ estimate, he said.

Some 56 people have been discharged from the hospital, while 10 are still admitted with injuries, senior police official Ashok Kumar Yadav told Reuters.

The bridge – 233 metres in length and 1.25 metres wide – was originally built in 1877 and had been closed for six months for repairs until last week.

CCTV footage of the incident showed a group of young men trying to rock the bridge from side to side while others took the photos before they tumbled into the river below as the cables gave way.

Police arrested nine people on Monday on charges including culpable homicide not amounting to murder. Those arrested included ticketing clerks accused of letting too many people onto the bridge and contractors that had been in charge of repair work.

One short-range ballistic missile crossed the Northern Limit Line, the de facto maritime border between the two countries, prompting a rare warning for residents on the island of Ulleungdo to seek shelter in bunkers.

The military said it was the “first time since the peninsula was divided” at the end of Korean War hostilities in 1953 that a North Korean missile had landed so close to the South’s territorial waters.

“President Yoon pointed out today that North Korea’s provocation is an effective territorial invasion by a missile that crossed the Northern Limit Line for the first time since the division,” his office said in a statement.

The missile closest to South Korea landed in waters just 57 kilometers (35 miles) east of the mainland, the military said.

The military released a statement describing the launch near the South’s territorial waters as “very rare and intolerable”.

“Our military vowed to respond firmly to this (provocation),” it added.

Soon after, the South Korean military said it had fired three air-to-ground missiles at the same spot on the maritime border where the North Korean one had landed.

An air raid warning was issued for Ulleungdo after the North Korean missile launch. The alert was flashed on national television and told residents to “evacuate to the nearest underground shelter”.

The South Korean military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff initially said it detected the launch of three short-range ballistic missiles.

But it later announced North Korea had fired more than 10 missiles “of various types today towards the east and west”.

Yoon Suk-yeol called a meeting of the National Security Council over the launches, ordering “swift and stern measures so that North Korea’s provocations pay a clear price.”

Japan also confirmed the North Korean missile launches, with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida telling reporters he planned to call a “national security meeting as soon as possible.”

South Korea closed some air routes over the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan, advising local airlines to detour to “ensure passenger safety in the routes to the United States and Japan”.

Vigilant Storm

Pyongyang’s latest test-firing came as Seoul and Washington staged their largest-ever joint air drills, dubbed “Vigilant Storm”, which involve hundreds of warplanes from both sides.

Pak Jong Chon, a high-ranking North Korean official, said the drills were aggressive and provocative, according to a report in state media Wednesday.

Pak said the name of the exercises harked back to Operation Desert Storm, the US-led military assault on Iraq in 1990-1991 after it invaded Kuwait.

“If the US and South Korea attempt to use armed forces against the (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) without any fear, the special means of the DPRK’s armed forces will carry out their strategic mission without delay,” he said.

“The US and South Korea will have to … pay the most horrible price in history.”

Close to S Korea 

North Korea’s missile launches on Wednesday appeared to be “the most aggressive and threatening armed demonstration against the South since 2010,” Cheong Seong-chang, a researcher at the Sejong Institute, told AFP.

“It is now a dangerous and unstable situation that could lead to armed conflict,” he added.

In March 2010, a North Korean submarine torpedoed the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan, killing 46 sailors including 16 who were on their mandatory military service.

In November the same year, the North shelled a South Korean border island, killing two marines — both of them young conscripts.

Wednesday’s missile tests follow a recent blitz of launches, including what the North said were tactical nuke drills.

Washington and Seoul have repeatedly warned the launches could culminate in another nuclear test — which would be Pyongyang’s seventh.

“As far as I can remember, North Korea has never made such a provocation when South Korea and the US were holding their joint drills,” Park Won-gon, a professor at Ewha University, told AFP.

“Pyongyang seems to have completed its most powerful deterrent. This is a serious threat. The North also seems confident in their nuclear capabilities.”

Iranian students protested Tuesday at multiple universities, defying a bloody crackdown as tensions mount on the eve of planned ceremonies marking 40 days since Mahsa Amini’s death. 

“A student may die but will not accept humiliation,” they chanted at Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, in an online video verified by AFP. Young women and schoolgirls have been at the forefront of protests sparked by Amini’s death last month, after her arrest for an alleged breach of the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women.

The 22-year-old Iranian of Kurdish origin died three days after being taken into custody by the notorious morality police on September 13 while visiting Tehran with her younger brother. Activists said the security services had warned Amini’s family against holding a ceremony and not to ask people to visit her grave Wednesday in Kurdistan province, otherwise “they should worry for their son’s life”.

Wednesday marks 40 days since Amini’s death and the end of the traditional mourning period in Iran.

State news agency IRNA published a statement it said was from the family, saying that “considering the circumstances and in order to avoid any unfortunate problem, we will not hold a ceremony marking the 40th day”.

‘Attacked, strip-searched, beaten’

Online videos showed students protesting Tuesday at Beheshti University and the Khaje Nasir Toosi University of Technology, both in Tehran, as well as Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz. The fresh demonstrations came after activists accused security forces of beating schoolgirls at the Shahid Sadr girls vocational school in Tehran on Monday.

“Students of the Sadr high school in Tehran have been attacked, strip-searched and beaten up,” said the 1500tasvir social media channel.

At least one student, 16-year-old Sana Soleimani, was hospitalised, said 1500tasvir, which chronicles rights violations by Iran’s security forces. “Parents later protested in front of the school. Security forces attacked the neighbourhood and shot at people’s houses,” it added.

The education ministry said a dispute erupted between schoolgirls and their parents and school staff after the principal demanded they comply with rules over the use of mobile phones. “The death of a student in this confrontation is strongly denied,” a ministry spokesman said, quoted by Iran’s ISNA news agency.

Families were seen clamouring for information outside the school in Tehran’s Salsabil neighbourhood, in an online video verified by AFP. And in western Kurdistan province, videos posted online by independent rights group Hengaw showed authorities on Tuesday evening patrolling roads leading into Saqqez, Amini’s hometown.

The group, which monitors rights violations in Kurdistan, also tweeted that Iranian football stars Ali Daei and Hamed Lak were in Saqqez as they “want to take part in the 40th day funeral” and were staying at the Kurd Hotel. But they “had been taken to the government guesthouse… under guard by the security forces”, Hengaw said.

Daei has previously run into trouble with authorities over his online support for the Amini protests. Unverified footage posted by Oslo-based Iran Human Rights group showed people gathering outside the Kurd Hotel in Saqqez “in their night protests”.

Top official heckled

Such reports have fuelled further anger over the crackdown that Iran Human Rights said, in an updated toll Tuesday, had cost the lives of at least 141 protesters.

Deadly unrest has hit not only Kurdistan — but also the city of Zahedan in the far southeast. IHR said 93 people were killed in demonstrations that erupted on September 30 over the reported rape of a teenage girl by a police commander.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency said unidentified gunmen killed two Revolutionary Guards in Zahedan Tuesday, taking to eight the number of security personnel killed in Sistan-Baluchistan.

Despite what rights group Amnesty International has called an “unrelenting brutal crackdown”, young women and men were again seen protesting in online videos on Tuesday.

“Death to the dictator” and “Death to the Revolutionary Guards”, women chanted in Tehran metro stations, in videos shared on Twitter.

Students heckled the spokesman for ultraconservative President Ebrahim Raisi as he addressed Tehran’s Khaje Nasir University, in a video published by the reformist paper Hammihan.

“Spokesman, get lost!” and “We don’t want a corrupt system, we don’t want a murderer”, they shouted at Ali Bahadori Jahromi.

Teachers observed a strike around the country Sunday and Monday over the crackdown, and another work stoppage was said to be under way in Kurdistan on Tuesday.

Amnesty says the crackdown has cost the lives of at least 23 children, while IHR said Tuesday at least 29 children have been killed.

There has also been a campaign of mass arrests of protesters and their supporters, including academics, journalists and even pop stars.

State media said Tuesday that more than 210 people were charged in connection with the protests in Kurdistan, Qazvin and Isfahan.

IRNA said 105 people were charged over protests in Khuzestan, citing the local judicial authorities.

Raihana M* was in her living room in the Afghan capital, Kabul, when she first heard of protests erupting across the border in neighbouring Iran following the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for allegedly breaching Iran’s strict dress code. 

The Afghan social worker saw footage of the protests in Iran on Manoto TV, a London-based Persian language TV station, and said she felt an immediate, almost physical, rush of solidarity for her Iranian sisters. 

“I was really shocked and sad. As an Afghan, as a woman, I felt solidarity because we are experiencing the same thing. Only it’s worse for women in Afghanistan,” she explained in a phone interview from Kabul. 

That was in late September, not long after 22-year-old Amini was declared dead by the Iranian authorities. Raihana then took to social media, watching clips of protests across Iranian cities and towns. 

Other Afghan women living under the Taliban regime were also doing the same. Within days, a group of around 30 Afghan women gathered outside the Iranian embassy in Kabul chanting, “Zan, zendagi, azadi!” (Women, life, freedom), echoing the protest cry from Iran. They also held banners proclaiming, “From Kabul to Iran, say no to dictatorship!”.

Taliban officials then moved in to break up the demonstration, firing into the air and threatening to hit the women with their rifle butts.  

Lina Qasimi, an Afghan teenager who has been unable to go to school since the Taliban shut down secondary schools, has also been keenly following the protests in Iran. “I feel very close to this. It’s really terrible. No one should be killed for just showing their hair. But in Afghanistan, it’s not just hair, it’s women. Just being a woman is a problem for the Taliban,” she said. 

With a 921 km border dividing the two countries, Tehran and Kabul have a complicated history of wars, border skirmishes, smuggling networks, migrations, and discrimination in Iran against Afghan refugees. But they also share cultural ties, common linguistic traditions, and centuries of empathy that is probably best described in the lyrics of revered Iranian songwriter, Bijan Taraghi, who famously wrote, “Though your child threw a stone at our window/It did not break our lasting bond”. 

‘Afghan women are really alone’ 

As protests spread across Iran, both Raihana and Qasimi were struck by the extraordinary scenes of Iranian men joining the women in their anti-regime demonstrations. “The difference is, in Iran, all the people are standing up. Iranian women and men are really protesting in unity,” noted Raihana. “In Afghanistan, it’s not like that – people are so afraid. Afghan women are really alone.” 

That’s true, says Tamim Asey, co-founder of the Kabul-based Institute for War and Peace Studies and a former Afghan deputy defence minister. “Iranian women have the support of men in considerable ways. Afghan women don’t have that. Afghan men have suffered 40 years of war, so much violence, so much killing. The Taliban are also putting tremendous pressure on the men. If some women protest, they find their husbands, fathers, brothers and arrest them,” he explained. 

Afghan women began protesting the week after the Taliban seized control of Kabul on August 15, 2021, despite the grave risk of confronting a movement of hardline Islamist male fighters.  

The crackdown has been brutal and extends to male relatives of ‘troublesome’ women, according to rights groups. In a report last week, the New York-based Human Rights Watch detailed the cases of three women, who were arrested with their husbands and children, separated under detention and severely tortured. The detained women included Tamana Paryani, who filmed herself pleading for help as the Taliban broke into her house at night in January after she joined a women’s protest demanding the right to education and work.

 

‘We are not allowed to do anything’ 

And yet, the women’s protests in Afghanistan have continued. Following an October 1 attack on an education centre in Kabul’s Dasht-e-Barachi neighbourhood, which killed more than 50 mostly female students, protests by women and girls erupted in several Afghan cities, including Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat and Bamiyan. 

But they failed to get the sort of media attention and solidarity displays that the Iranian protests have attracted across the world.

On Saturday, around 80,000 people from across Europe demonstrated in Berlin in solidarity with the protest movement in Iran. Global celebrities, including leading French actress Juliette Binoche, have filmed themselves cutting locks of hair in public displays of protest against Amini’s death in custody.

“The international support for Iranian women has been phenomenal. US President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, actors, designers, celebrities have all condemned the persecution and expressed support for the Iranian protesters. The same thing does not happen for Afghan women – even though they originally started the protest movement that had a spillover effect in Iran. And they raised their voices against a far more brutal, dogmatic regime,” said Asey. 

The international engagement in Afghanistan, followed by the disastrous fallout of the hasty US withdrawal, could account for the lack of global interest, according to experts. “Over the last 20 years, Western countries have supported Afghan women in various forms and forums. The West feels it’s done so much, now it’s time for Afghan women to take it on. In Iran, that support wasn’t there,” explained Asey. 

But for Afghan women, taking on the Taliban’s restrictive policies is a monumental task. 

The fear of crackdowns and surveillance have forced Qasimi and her friends to take to social media and avoid the streets. But even the online solidarity is restricted to “live stories” – which typically expire after 24 hours – and not “posts” that stay online until they are deleted.

“It’s the only way I can say anything. It’s too dangerous to post anything critical. The Taliban will find you and they can do anything. We are not allowed to do anything. We’re not allowed to go to school, even if we just go outside, we fear we may not come back home,” explained the Afghan teenager. 

At 26, Raihana, on the other hand, completed her education during the US intervention years. She is among the few, lucky women in the country to still have her job, at an international NGO. The Afghan aid worker did not want her real name or that of her employer revealed due to the security risks. And there are many. In the mornings, Raihana dons an abaya, an all-black robe worn in Gulf countries that has made its way to Afghanistan. Their office car, with female and male colleagues, takes different routes each day to avoid Taliban checkpoints as they make their way to work, offering essential humanitarian services that the Taliban fails to provide Afghans. 

The differences between the women-led protest movements in Afghanistan and Iran extend to the scope of their demands, according to Barnett Rubin, a leading Afghanistan expert and former special advisor to the late US Ambassador for Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke. “The Iranian demonstrations are centrally against enforcement of hijab and then more broadly “freedom.” Education of girls and women is a non-issue in Iran. In Afghanistan, women are protesting about issues of basic rights and survival and not, so far, about hijab,” explained Rubin in emailed comments to FRANCE 24. 

Spillover effect – or not 

From her home in Kabul, Raihana says she is closely monitoring the situation in Iran. “If the protests work, if the Iranian government makes changes, if the restrictions on hijab change, I think the Taliban will see it. They will learn that if they continue like this, it could happen here,” she said. 

But Asey is not as optimistic. “My assessment and reading of the situation is that the Taliban barely cares about the women’s movement in Iran. They’re not afraid of a spillover,” he maintained. 

As a former deputy defence minister, Asey explained that Kabul’s main concerns with Tehran are focused on border issues, including drug trafficking and migration. 

Protests in Iran have indeed spread to the impoverished province of Sistan-Baluchistan – which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan – including a September 30 “Black Friday” massacre, when Iranian security forces opened fire on protesters, killing at least 66 people.

But the unrest in the remote Iranian border province involves longstanding governance and religious rights issues between the predominantly Sunni Baloch ethnic group and Shiite authorities in Tehran, explained Asey.

Despite the odd border clashes and demonstrations over the mistreatment of Afghans in Iran, the Taliban have managed a working relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran since the August 2021 takeover of Afghanistan.  

Both administrations are wary of the West, particularly the US. When it comes to women’s rights, the situation in Iran may not be as bleak as in Afghanistan, but the two Islamic administrations are joined in their bid to silence female voices – and blame the West’s “corrupting influence” when that fails. 

“I understand that the Taliban and Iran have some connection. There are meetings, discussions between them,” said Raihana. “Also, the Taliban stopped the protest in support of Iranian women outside the Iranian embassy in Kabul. It shows some support for each other.” 

But Afghan women are also drawing moral support from their Iranian sisters across the border and are determined to keep up the pressure for their basic human rights. 

*Name changed to protect identity 

 

Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong said Australia “will always be a steadfast friend of Israel” and was committed to a two-state solution in which Israel and a future Palestine coexist in peace within internationally recognised borders.

The government “recommits Australia to international efforts in the responsible pursuit of progress towards a just and enduring two-state solution”, she said in a statement.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry voiced “deep disappointment” with the decision and said it would summon the Australian ambassador.

“Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people for 3,000 years and will continue to be the State of Israel’s eternal and united capital, regardless of this-or-that decision,” the ministry said in a statement.

Previous Prime Minister Scott Morrison had reversed decades of Middle East policy in December 2018 by saying Australia recognised west Jerusalem as the capital of Israel but would not move its embassy there immediately.

Former US President Donald Trump had recognised Jerusalem as the capital a year earlier, without elaborating on the boundaries of a city whose eastern sector – the location of major Jewish, Christian and Muslim holy sites – Palestinians want for their future capital.

The Palestinians, whose US-sponsored statehood talks with Israel stalled in 2014 and who boycotted Trump’s administration over his pro-Israel moves, praised Australia’s turnaround.

Calling it a “correction of a mistake made by the previous government,” Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki told Reuters that Australia should now “move to the more important step, and that is recognising the state of Palestine in light of its commitment to the two-state solution”.

‘Out of step’

Wong told reporters Morrison’s 2018 decision “put Australia out of step with the majority of the international community”, and was met with concern by Muslim-majority neighbour Indonesia.

“I regret that Mr Morrison’s decision to play politics resulted in Australia’s shifting position, and the distress these shifts have caused to many people in the Australian community who care deeply about this issue,” she said.

Morrison had flagged moving the embassy from Tel Aviv in 2018 just days before a by-election in a Sydney electorate with a strong Jewish representation, which his Liberal party nonetheless lost.

The Guardian first reported a change to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website to remove language describing West Jerusalem as the capital on Monday.

Wong said the decision was made by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Cabinet on Tuesday.

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, a centrist lagging behind his conservative predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of a November 1 election, accused Canberra of being misled by a media report.

“We can only hope that the Australian government manages other matters more seriously and professionally,” he said on Twitter.

Wong earlier told reporters the department website had been updated “ahead of government processes”.

Morrison’s Liberal-led coalition lost a national election in May, returning a Labor government for the first time in nine years.

Sun Chunlan is a special case in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) galaxy: She is the only woman in the Politburo, the Beijing regime’s powerful executive body. But it’s not for long. Sun is expected to step down from her post during the 20th Chinese Communist Party Congress, the weeklong, twice-a-decade meeting, which began on Sunday, October 16. At 72, China’s “Iron Lady” is past the usual retirement age of 68.

The nerve center of Chinese power could therefore be composed solely of men, aggravating a chronic problem of gender underrepresentation in the nation’s halls of power.

Since 2017, Sun has embodied the CCP’s image of a party unafraid to promote women to top positions. She holds the prestigious title of vice premier, one of only four in the 25-member Politburo.

‘Women hold up half the sky’, but men rule

Sun’s “Iron Lady” moniker has been reinforced over the past two years, since President Xi Jinping appointed her as the country’s top official overseeing China’s Covid-19 pandemic response.

She has been the enforcer of Xi’s “zero-Covid” policy – proof, if proof were needed, that the country’s only female vice premier enjoys the president’s complete confidence to manage one of the most serious health crises confronting the Chinese leader since he came to power in 2012.

But managing the controversial public health policy is not exactly a political gift. Some China experts believe Xi found in Sun an easy “zero-Covid” scapegoat to be sacrificed if his management of the pandemic becomes too contentious. The health dossier has also traditionally been entrusted to women in Communist China; one of Sun’s Politburo predecessors was Wu Yi, who had to deal with the 2003 SARS epidemic.

Nevertheless, Sun’s departure will leave a void in the party’s upper echelons. There are other female candidates for the coveted Politburo post, including Shen Yiqin, the only woman to serve as party general secretary of an entire province, Guizhou, in southern China. Shen also hails from the Bai ethnic minority, “which – cynically speaking – means she simultaneously checks the woman box and the ethnic minority box”, noted the China Project website.

But “nothing obliges the CCP to replace Sun Chunlan with another woman”, explained Valarie Tan from the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies (Merics). The likely absence of women in the next Politburo, to be unveiled during the 20th Chinese Communist Party Congress, would not be surprising since Sun’s position represents the exception to the rule.

In theory, Communist China claims to be one of the most egalitarian regimes in the world. Schoolchildren across the country are familiar with founding father Mao Zedong’s famous “women hold up half the sky” quote reinforcing constitutional equal rights. “From the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the CCP has placed equality between women and men as one of the characteristics that distinguish the Communist state from the ‘old China’,” explained Cheng Li, from the Washington-based Brookings Institution, in a report on female representation in Chinese politics.

A very patriarchal party

But the reality is quite different for a country with around 703 million women, constituting 48.7 percent of the total population.

Since 1949, there have been only six women in the CCP Politburo. Three of them were the wives of the founders of Communist China. Among the more than 300 members of the Central Committee – who elect Politburo members and endorse their decisions – there are barely 30 women. In short, only “eight percent of the party’s leadership positions have been given to women”, noted Tan.

The Politburo – of which Sun is a member – in turn selects the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee. The current Standing Committee has seven members, none of them women.

This underrepresentation is not due to a lack of Chinese women choosing political careers. Between January 2020 and June 2021, for instance, nearly half of new party members were women.

The 20th Congress could have been the occasion to spearhead the fight against the political glass ceiling since the meeting provides an occasion for a major renewal of the party’s upper echelons. But the chances of significant change in female representation are slim.

For starters, the reasons for male domination in top political positions have not been questioned. The party’s executive positions are often reserved for “leaders who had held managerial roles at state-owned enterprises, ministries and regional governments, positions for which women were often bypassed”, noted Minglu Chen, from the University of Sydney’s China Studies Centre, in the South China Morning Post.

Secondly, promotion within the CCP is “entirely based on factional ties rather than individual merits”, Bo Zhiyue, an expert in Chinese elite politics based in New Zealand, told the South China Morning Post. “This has created a very helpless situation because it’s a selection, not an election,” he added.

To rise to the top of the political ladder, aspirants need the right support, and women often have less direct access to those few party figures who can promote their protégés.

Xi is also no champion of women in politics. He embodies “the CCP’s very patriarchal approach to society”, argues Tan. The end of the one-child policy in 2021 was an opportunity for the Chinese president to insist on the importance of “traditional family values”. He has even initiated a campaign to exalt “the unique physical and mental traits [of women] for giving birth and caring for newborns”. In other words, the Chinese leader would rather see women at home than in the office.

A demographic crisis, but women don’t have a say

This lack of women in leadership has important economic and social consequences, noted Tan. “One of the root causes of the current demographic crisis in China is the underrepresentation of women in important positions,” she explained. “The problems of almost half the population are not, or barely, represented in the CCP.”

And so, the incentive to have children is essentially “money distributed to families, without taking into account the deeper reasons why Chinese women do not want to have more children”, explained Tan.

Chinese authorities are also not severe enough when it comes to tackling domestic abuse and violence against women in general, noted Tan. The impunity that some powerful men involved in sexual assault scandals seem to enjoy – such as former vice premier Zhang Gaoli, who is accused of rape by tennis player Peng Shuai – reinforces a “climate that does not make women want to have children”, said Tan.

Communist party honchos who have been setting priorities in recent years to encourage people to have more children “could have benefitted from conversations with women on the Standing Committee”, noted the China Project, referring to the tiny group of Politburo Standing Committee members selected by the 25-member Politburo. “Too bad there weren’t any.”

This article is a translation from the original in French.

 

Sunday’s protest took place on the first day of the twice-a-decade congress of China’s ruling Communist Party in Beijing at which Xi is widely expected to win a third leadership term.

Several protest banners had been placed outside the consulate, one with the words, “Heaven will destroy the Chinese Communist Party”.

Greater Manchester Police said about 30 to 40 people were gathered outside the Chinese consulate.

“Shortly before 4 p.m. a small group of men came out of the building and a man was dragged into the consulate grounds and assaulted,” a police statement said.

“Due to our fears for the safety of the man, officers intervened and removed the victim from the consulate grounds.”

Footage posted by the BBC showed a man in a black cap and ponytail being hauled through a gate into the consular grounds, where he was kicked and punched by five men as he lay on the ground.

One silver-haired man in a blue beret, glasses and scarf could also be seen grabbing the man’s hair before police entered the consulate grounds and pulled the man out.

The police said in a statement the man – in his 30s – suffered several physical injuries and remained in hospital overnight for treatment. No arrests have been made.

Assistant Chief Constable Rob Potts said a full investigation was underway.

Alicia Kearns, a lawmaker in Britain’s ruling Conservative Party and the head of parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, said the government should summon the Chinese ambassador and expel or prosecute any official who had beaten protesters.

The Chinese consulate in Manchester did not respond to requests from Reuters for comment. A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Liz Truss said the reports were “deeply concerning”.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters in Beijing on Monday he was not aware of the situation but that Chinese missions acted in accordance with international diplomatic agreements.

“Chinese embassies and consulates in the UK have always abided by the laws of their country of residence, and we also hope that the British side will facilitate the normal performance of duties of Chinese embassies and consulates,” Wang said.