Conflict over clocks: China among countries where time is political

Travellers walk past a giant screen clock marking the 100th founding anniversary of the Communist Party of China, at the Beijing Daxing International Airport, China, in 2021 [File: Tingshu Wang/Reuters]

When Nuria Shamsed* was a child, she would sit with her family in front of her grandparents’ house on the outskirts of the Western Chinese city of Kashgar in the Xinjiang region and watch the summer sun set at about midnight.

Kashgar is not located particularly far north – it is approximately at the same latitude as the Turkish capital, Ankara, where sundown is several hours earlier.