BEIJING/HONG KONG: Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday called for greater representation for women in politics and government at a global women’s summit in Beijing, a move he said would ensure that gender equality is “truly internalized” within society.
The two-day “Global leaders meeting on women,” held in conjunction with UN Women, seeks to further advance women’s development globally, gender equality and the well-rounded development of women, authorities said.
Leaders from Iceland, Sri Lanka, Ghana, Dominica and Mozambique are attending, state media reported.
Xi said that countries needed to “broaden channels for women to participate in political and decision-making, and promote women’s broad participation in national and social governance.”
Peace and stability are prerequisites for women’s all-round development, Xi said.
The summit comes as China has made great strides in educating women, who account for around 50 percent of students in higher education and around 43 percent of the total employed population.
However, the lack of senior female politicians appears to be at odds with a broad push by the Communist Party to increase female representation. An absence of women among China’s top leadership is concerning, the United Nations said in 2023, as it recommended China adopt statutory quotas and a gender parity system to quicken equal representation of women in government.
In 2022, China for the first time in 20 years did not have a woman among the 24 members of the country’s politburo and no women among the seven members of the standing committee of the politburo. Xi’s decade as the party’s general secretary has seen the number of women in politics and elite government roles decline and gender gaps in the workforce widen, academics and activists say. Xi said in 2023 that women have a critical role and must establish a “new trend of family,” as the nation grapples with an aging population and record decline in the birth rate.
Doing a good job in women’s work is not only related to women’s own development but also related to “family harmony, social harmony, national development and national progress,” he said.
China’s Xi calls for greater inclusion of women in governance
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China’s Xi calls for greater inclusion of women in governance
- Xi said that countries needed to “broaden channels for women to participate in political and decision-making, and promote women’s broad participation in national and social governance”
UK to cut protections for refugees under asylum ‘overhaul’
- PM Starmer announced the cuts amid mounting pressure in the face of soaring support for the hard right
- More than 39,000 people, many fleeing conflict, have arrived this year in the UK
LONDON: Britain will drastically reduce protections for refugees under plans to overhaul its asylum system, the Labour government said on Saturday.
The measures were announced as Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces mounting pressure over irregular migration in the face of soaring support for the hard right.
“I’ll end UK’s golden ticket for asylum seekers,” interior minister Shabana Mahmood declared in a statement.
Presently, those given refugee status have it for five years, after which they can apply for indefinite leave to remain and eventually citizenship.
But Mahmood’s ministry, known as the Home Office, said it would cut the length of refugee status to 30 months.
That protection will be “regularly reviewed” and refugees will be forced to return to their home countries once they are deemed safe, it added.
The ministry also said that it intended to make those refugees who are granted asylum wait 20 years before applying to be allowed to live in the UK long-term, instead of the current five.
The Home Office called the proposals the “largest overhaul of asylum policy in modern times.”
Starmer, elected last summer, is under pressure to stop migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats from France, something that also troubled his Conservative predecessors.
More than 39,000 people, many fleeing conflict, have arrived this year following such dangerous journeys — more than for the whole of 2024 but lower than the record set in 2022.
The crossings are helping fuel the popularity of Reform, led by firebrand Nigel Farage, which has led Labour by double-digit margins in opinion polls for most of this year.
Asylum claims in Britain are at a record high, with some 111,000 applications made in the year to June 2025, according to official figures.
