Welcome to Foreign Policy’s China Brief.
The highlights this week: Beijing launches a new crackdown on organized crime; a slate of racist, AI-generated videos floods the Chinese internet; and China plans to conduct an asteroid defense test.
Beijing Targets Illegal Mining, Sand Industries
China has launched a one-year “special campaign” against organized crime, promising a crackdown on enterprises ranging from online scam syndicates to human trafficking. These campaigns are a semiregular feature of Chinese politics. The last major one, named the “Special Campaign to Sweep Away Black Societies and Eliminate Evil Forces,” ran from 2018 to 2021.
An official Q&A notes a focus on six types of “bullies”—a term used in previous government crackdowns to describe gangs that dominate what should be public spaces or state resources. (“Bullies” is the state media translation. The Chinese word is ba, which is akin to a local tyrant; “thugs” or “racketeers” might be closer in English.)
