What can help to protect women’s health, boost the incomes of impoverished families and thus allow girls to avoid early marriage? What — when it disappears — can set back children’s education, damage mental wellbeing, drive conflict within communities and become a vector for racial hatred?
The humble donkey has rarely been in the spotlight. However, Chinese demand for its skin proved so destabilizing that African governments agreed to a continent-wide ban on the slaughter of the animal for its hide last year. This week, officials are meeting in Ivory Coast to discuss implementation.
A recent paper by Lauren Johnston of the University of Sydney outlines the extraordinary rise and fall of the Sino-African trade in donkey skins, and its repercussions. Ejiao — donkey hide gelatine — was first developed about 3,000 years ago and is used in traditional Chinese medicine and more recently in beauty products. Longstanding demand was supercharged by growing prosperity and media influence, reportedly surging after characters in a popular Chinese TV period drama, Empresses in the Palace, were shown taking it. However, while production of ejiao had been industrialized, a problem soon emerged: Donkeys are notably hard to breed. Ejiao consumption equates to 4 million to 5 million hides per year, equivalent to almost one-tenth of the global donkey population. China’s stock of animals plummeted from 11 million in the early 1990s to just 2 million — and attention turned to African hides.
The continent is home to almost two-thirds of the world’s 53 million donkeys. Their use as beasts of burden there dates back even further than the invention of ejiao; owners describe them as priceless. Despite governments’ attempts to regulate the trade in hides, there were repeated complaints not only of inhumane treatment but also crime; on one estimate, as many as one-third of the exported hides were stolen. Families woke to find their animals had vanished, or been slaughtered and skinned on the spot.
Many could not afford to replace them, because the price of new animals had soared. Without the creatures, women are often forced to carry heavy loads of firewood or water; children may be kept home to help with chores; families can no longer rent donkeys to Neighbours, reducing their incomes. Former owners reported reduced wellbeing and increased stress. Some suspected their neighbors of stealing their donkeys, and in South Africa, online posts about Chinese gangs involved in the illicit trade attracted comments inciting racial hatred. The African Union ban might tackle some of these problems, but it might also be shifting them. In Pakistan, the price of the animals has rocketed.
The case of the missing donkeys might sound like a niche concern, but is really a particular instance of a pressing global issue. Oil and minerals might get the attention, but growing competition for resources — driven by increasing prosperity in economies such as China and India, and the pace of consumer culture — can pop up in unexpected areas, hit the poorest hardest and create new diplomatic, social and economic tensions. Addressing such cases would take not only determination, but ingenuity and a willingness to work with unlikely allies: Africa’s ban was driven by a coalition of farmers, animal rights campaigners, economists, gender activists, religious leaders and others. It would also need to be done at speed. The donkey shock is not a one-off, but a warning of other potential flashpoints ahead.
The central bank and the US Department of the Treasury on Friday issued a joint statement that both sides agreed to avoid currency manipulation and the use of exchange rates to gain a competitive advantage, and would only intervene in foreign-exchange markets to combat excess volatility and disorderly movements. The central bank also agreed to disclose its foreign-exchange intervention amounts quarterly rather than every six months, starting from next month. It emphasized that the joint statement is unrelated to tariff negotiations between Taipei and Washington, and that the US never requested the appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar during the
Since leaving office last year, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has been journeying across continents. Her ability to connect with international audiences and foster goodwill toward her country continues to enhance understanding of Taiwan. It is possible because she can now walk through doors in Europe that are closed to President William Lai (賴清德). Tsai last week gave a speech at the Berlin Freedom Conference, where, standing in front of civil society leaders, human rights advocates and political and business figures, she highlighted Taiwan’s indispensable global role and shared its experience as a model for democratic resilience against cognitive warfare and
The diplomatic dispute between China and Japan over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments in the Japanese Diet continues to escalate. In a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, China’s UN Ambassador Fu Cong (傅聰) wrote that, “if Japan dares to attempt an armed intervention in the cross-Strait situation, it would be an act of aggression.” There was no indication that Fu was aware of the irony implicit in the complaint. Until this point, Beijing had limited its remonstrations to diplomatic summonses and weaponization of economic levers, such as banning Japanese seafood imports, discouraging Chinese from traveling to Japan or issuing
The diplomatic spat between China and Japan over comments Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made on Nov. 7 continues to worsen. Beijing is angry about Takaichi’s remarks that military force used against Taiwan by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” necessitating the involvement of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. Rather than trying to reduce tensions, Beijing is looking to leverage the situation to its advantage in action and rhetoric. On Saturday last week, four armed China Coast Guard vessels sailed around the Japanese-controlled Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), known to Japan as the Senkakus. On Friday, in what
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