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Paris Agreement, Xinjiang Camps, Japanese Restaurant: Your Monday Briefing
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Good morning. A salvaged Paris climate agreement, forced labor in Chinese detention camps and McKinsey’s authoritarian clients. Here’s the latest:
• China’s Xinjiang camps turn to forced labor.
There is mounting evidence that a system of forced labor is emerging from the sprawling network of camps used to detain and “re-educate” hundreds of thousands of Muslims. Accounts from the region, satellite images and previously unreported official documents suggest that detainees are being sent to new factories built inside or near the camps. In the words of a Turkish researcher, they are providing “free or low-cost forced labor.”
Above, Chinese state television showed Muslims attending classes.
China’s ruling Communist Party portrays the phenomenon as job training and employment that provides an escape from poverty and the temptations of radical Islam.
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• McKinsey’s authoritarian clients.
Just four miles from one of the Xinjiang internment camps, McKinsey, the U.S. consulting firm, hosted its annual retreat this year. Above, one of the celebratory images shared on Instagram.
The showcase of close ties with China — a week after a U.N. committee denounced the mass detentions — underscores how the American company has helped raise the stature of troubling governments across the globe, sometimes in ways that counter American interests.
The firm’s roster of authoritarian clients has included Saudi Arabia’s absolute monarchy, Turkey under the autocratic leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and corruption-plagued governments in countries like South Africa.
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• Climate negotiators saved the Paris Agreement.
The deal — reached by representatives from nearly 200 countries at a meeting in Poland — will require all to follow a single set of standards for measuring emissions and tracking policies. It also calls for stepped-up plans to cut emissions ahead of the next talks, in two years. Above, Michal Kurtyka, who led the talks, celebrated by leaping over his desk.
The U.S. agreed to the pact despite President Trump’s vow to abandon the Paris accord, which cannot formally happen until late 2020.
In Washington, a key figure in Mr. Trump’s sweeping plan to reshape the environmental framework, Ryan Zinke, resigned from his post as interior secretary amid numerous ethics investigations. His likely successor, David Bernhardt, is a former oil lobbyist who has influenced Mr. Trump’s energy policy.
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• Weekend protests continued in France.
“Yellow Vest” protesters gathered in France for a fifth consecutive weekend. But the demonstrations were relatively muted in Paris because of bitterly cold weather, protester weariness, President Emmanuel Macron’s concessions and security warnings after a terrorist shooting at a Christmas market in Strasbourg.
The unrest has roiled the country and clouded Mr. Macron’s efforts for economic revival as protesters speak out about social inequality. The mass demonstrations have hampered economic activity and hurt the country’s image with investors and tourists.
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Business
• Stocks around the world are getting pummeled, while commodities and bonds are tumbling — all of which has left investors with few places to put their money.
• China’s economy has slowed sharply in recent months, presenting perhaps the biggest challenge to President Xi Jinping in his six years of rule.
• Details of the charges against Meng Wanzhou, a top executive at Huawei, remain murky. But the events leading to her arrest in Canada were set in motion years ago by a U.S. investigation into Chinese companies, according to court filings and interviews. Our Montreal bureau chief looks closely at the two Canadians who China detained after Ms. Meng’s arrest.
• The Trump family’s scheme to avoid taxes in the 1990s inflated rents for thousands of residents of their father’s real estate empire.
• Here’s a snapshot of global markets.
In the News
• In the Kashmir Valley, funerals were held and train and mobile internet services were suspended as Indian authorities sought to prevent unrest from spreading after their security forces opened fire on a village protest on Saturday, killing seven civilians and injuring dozens more. [Reuters]
• The legalization of gay sex in India has set off a movement to overturn a similar colonial-era ban in Singapore. [The New York Times]
• North Korea warned that U.S. pressure could shatter any chance of denuclearization if Washington continues to escalate its sanctions and human rights campaign against Pyongyang. [The New York Times]
• A blast at a Japanese restaurant in Sapporo, on the northern island of Hokkaido, injured more than 40 people. [A.P.]
• A landmark genocide verdict against two former Khmer Rouge leaders has been thrown into question because one of their lawyers let his law license lapse. [The New York Times]
• In China, the case of a 12-year-old boy who was able to return to school five days after stabbing his mother to death has raised widespread questions about the country’s juvenile justice system. [The New York Times]
• Ukraine moved toward establishing its own Orthodox Church independent of Russia, electing a leader for a national church that will not answer to Moscow’s — a break in tradition expected to increase tensions with Russia. [The New York Times]
Smarter Living
Tips for a more fulfilling life.
• Recipe of the day: A vegetarian riff on pasta carbonara.
• How to officiate a wedding and why you’d want to.
• Which spy cams are best for checking in on pets?
Noteworthy
• Works by artists from Europe, Australia and the U.S. were abruptly pulled from an art festival in southern China on the orders of cultural authorities. No reasons were given, leaving room for speculation that the artists’ topics — technology, gene editing and 3-D printing of human organs — were simply too timely and relevant for the censors’ comfort.
• Reindeer are a way of life for the Sami, an indigenous Arctic people numbering fewer than 140,000. They are fighting the latest challenge to their identity: Norway’s insistence that they limit their herds to 75 to prevent overgrazing.
• International interest in the well-being of Pete Davidson, the “Saturday Night Live” star, exploded after he posted a troubling message on Instagram. The actor, the ex-fiancé of the singer Ariana Grande, made a small but reassuring appearance on the final live “S.N.L.” show of 2018.
Back Story
The exiled Chinese writer Ma Jian says his latest novel, “China Dream,” was heavily influenced by George Orwell’s dystopian classic “1984.”
Orwell’s 1949 novel described a totalitarian regime that suppressed critical thought. Mr. Ma says “China Dream” shows how the vision has become reality in China under President Xi Jinping.
“I’m going to carve this book in stone and bring it to Orwell’s grave,” he said on a recent trip to Hong Kong.
Mr. Ma, above last month in Hong Kong, isn’t the only one thinking of Orwell these days.
Last year, a White House adviser defended a colleague’s provably false claim about the size of Mr. Trump’s inauguration crowd as “alternative facts.” Some readers said the comment sounded Orwellian, and sales of “1984” surged.
And in May, the White House described China’s decision to order 36 airline companies to purge their websites of references to Macau, Taiwan and Hong Kong as separate countries as “Orwellian nonsense.”
(China’s foreign ministry fired back by saying it was an “objective fact” that all three places were “inseparable parts of Chinese territory.”)
Mike Ives, a reporter in our Hong Kong office, wrote today’s Back Story.
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