Our picks: China watchChina Winning Battery Race | DOJ China Initiative | How China Exports Repression, and more

Academics in Hong Kong Suffer Curbs on Their Freedoms  (Economist)
A climate of fear has enveloped the city’s campuses.

China’s “Dreamchild” Is Stealthily Winning the Battery Race  (Economist)
Now comes the hard bit: geopolitics.

The EU-US Tech Council Shouldn’t Just Focus on China  (Konstantinos Komaitis and Justin Sherman, Brookings)
Rather than a reactive approach focused on Chinese activities, the newly announced Trade and Technology Council would be better served by a proactive approach that boosts democratic technology governance and internet values while providing alternatives to prevailing models of authoritarian internet control and corporate surveillance.

China and the Taliban Begin Their Romance  (Derek Grossman, Foreign Policy)
Beijing has its eyes set on using Afghanistan as a strategic corridor once U.S. troops are out of the way.

To Win Friends and Influence People, America Should Learn from the CCP  (Jim Richardson, Foreign Policy)
Beijing’s development projects are flashy, fast, and relevant. Why aren’t Washington’s?

Biden’s Dangerous Doctrine  (Jonathan Tepperman, Foreign Policy)
The administration’s core foreign policy is all about confronting China—and far riskier than Washington seems to realize.

China’s Drowned City Is a Bleak Sign of a Changing Climate  (James Palmer, Foreign Policy)
Infrastructural damage will hurt global supply chains for electronics and cars.

AP Looks Inside China’s Largest Detention Center in Xinjiang  (Associated Press)
China has described its sweeping lockup of a million or more minorities over the past four years as a “war against terror,” after a series of knifings and bombings by a small number of extremist Uyghurs native to Xinjiang. Among its most controversial aspects were the so-called vocational “training centers” – described by former detainees as brutal internment camps surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards.

Time to End the U.S. Justice Department’s China Initiative  (By Margaret K. Lewis, Foreign Policy)
A misguided effort at countering espionage needs a serious rethink.

Operation Fox Hunt: How China Exports Repression Using a Network of Spies Hidden in Plain Sight  (Sebastian Rotella and Kirsten Berg, ProPublica)
China sends covert teams abroad to bring back people accused — justifiably or not — of financial crimes. One New Jersey family was stalked as part of a global campaign that takes families hostage and pressures immigrants to serve as spies.