Yunnan’s propaganda office staged parallel Mid-Autumn galas in Vietnam and Cambodia, deploying friendship discourse to advance China’s regional engagement strategy.

Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard’s October visit to China—the first in over a decade— indicated a thaw in the relationship which has been in a bad state for many years. The timing was symbolic: October 17th marked exactly ten years since Swedish citizen Gui Minhai’s abduction by Chinese agents in Thailand.