Fire Hydrant of Freedom
Politics, Religion, Science, Culture and Humanities => Politics & Religion => Topic started by: Crafty_Dog on April 28, 2020, 05:16:48 PM
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Getting to be too many of these that don't fit in existing threads:
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15943/coronavirus-china-intimidation
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Taiwan’s Coronavirus Example
The WHO covers for a secretive China, but Taipei is a real model.
By The Editorial Board
April 27, 2020 6:25 pm ET
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A thermal scanner monitors people's body temperature in a hospital, Taipei, Feb. 1.
PHOTO: DAVID CHANG/SHUTTERSTOCK
Since 1971 China has prevented Taiwan, which Beijing insists is a rogue province, from fully participating in the World Health Organization (WHO). Now the Covid-19 pandemic has put in sharp relief the deadly consequences of placing East Asia’s regional politics before global health.
As the Trump Administration reviews the WHO’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak, it also should work with Congress to make better treatment of Taipei a condition for continued financial support.
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Taiwan has been a model for handling the outbreak. Its transparent and competent approach has left the island nation of 24 million with 429 confirmed cases and only six deaths. On Monday the country announced zero new cases, and officials believe the local epidemic could be over by June. China’s penchant for secrecy and political control, on the other hand, helped to make the local outbreak a global pandemic. Yet WHO has treated the two as if the opposite were true.
The coronavirus emerged in China late last year, with the first confirmed cases reported in December. On New Year’s Eve, public health officials in Wuhan, China, told WHO about a pneumonia virus but doubted it could spread easily. On the same day, Taiwanese officials say they asked the agency for more information about the virus and the risk of human-to-human transmission. WHO officials reportedly confirmed receipt of the note but didn’t respond.
This didn’t stop Taipei, which immediately began health inspections on flights arriving from Wuhan. Meantime, Chinese and WHO officials played down the threat together. Their statements on the lack of human-to-human transmission were almost identical, according to Berkeley researcher Xiao Qiang. Taiwanese officials announced on Jan. 16 that the virus seemed more contagious than originally reported. Four days later, China finally acknowledged it could spread between humans.
WHO called an emergency committee to discuss the virus on Jan. 22-23 but left Taiwanese officials in the dark. A Taiwanese Centers for Disease Control official lamented, “There’s no way for us to get firsthand information.” There also was no way to push back against Beijing’s overreach. Under Chinese pressure, WHO director-general Tedros Ghebreyesus refrained from declaring that Covid-19 had become a “public health emergency of international concern” until Jan. 30.
Despite WHO’s kneecapping, Taiwan proved more competent. Hubei province, home to Wuhan, didn’t take serious action to contain the virus until Jan. 22, when China had at least 440 confirmed cases and nine deaths. By contrast the small democracy activated its epidemic response force on Jan. 20, a day before confirming its first case. While Dr. Tedros was lavishing praise on a secretive China, the smaller nation had started drills and implemented quarantines. On April 1 Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen announced the country would donate 10 million masks abroad.
Part of WHO’s job is to provide clarity and information without political bias. Yet its insistence on following China’s line has led to confusion. In the past WHO has referred to the island as “Taiwan, China,” or simply “Taipei.” It also has labeled the country as “Taipei and its environs.” Perversely, WHO’s bizarre classification of Taiwan gives Beijing credit for Taipei’s good work.
WHO’s deference to China over Taiwan has taken farcical turns. In March Bruce Aylward, a Tedros confidant who oversees the WHO-China Joint Mission on Coronavirus, hung up on a reporter after being asked about Taiwan’s WHO membership. The agency quickly published a statement claiming it “is working closely with all health authorities who are facing the current coronavirus pandemic, including Taiwanese health experts.” Yet the Taiwanese Foreign Ministry noted, “Between 2009 and 2019, we have applied to the WHO to take part in 187 technical meetings but have only been invited to 57 of them.”
The organization also added that “the question of Taiwanese membership in WHO is up to WHO Member States, not WHO staff.” That’s technically true. But senior WHO officials have made their preference clear—often in ugly ways.
Dr. Tedros has deflected criticism of his leadership by accusing the Taiwanese government of condoning racist attacks against him. He provided no evidence, and we’ve seen none. Recently evidence emerged that Africans in Guangzhou, China, have been evicted from their homes and rejected by businesses as coronavirus-fueled xenophobia spreads. Governments across Africa have expressed concern, but Dr. Tedros has been quiet.
Many of the world’s viruses originate in China, and WHO understandably needs to maintain a relationship with the country. But its preferential treatment for Beijing has endangered lives in China and beyond.
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I once almost became an involuntary guest of the Taiwanese government as I was spotted running a fever by the thermal cameras at Taoyuan International Airport. I was questioned by two men in white coats about my symptoms as two ROC National Police Agency officers with slung M-16s appeared and stood by. I was allowed to board my flight to LAX as they determined I probably had food poisoning.
I might have been better off missing the flight. I was sick as a dog.
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Bringing this over to the new thread.
"China’s leaders not only knew how contagious the virus was, they acted on that inside information. In December, they stopped all internal flights from Wuhan to protect Shanghai, Beijing, and other population centers. Yet they allowed international flights to continue. Flights from Wuhan to Madrid. Wuhan to Rome. Wuhan to Seattle. Wuhan to Los Angeles."
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/04/27/a_china-us_cold_war_143042.html
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https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/28/cruz-bill-pentagon-china-film-215942
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8265655/Chinese-state-media-insult-Australia-diplomatic-relations-crumble-amid-coronavirus-crisis.html
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK3cIoXccr8&feature=emb_logo
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https://news.trust.org/item/20200504103349-xwxse
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https://freebeacon.com/national-security/harvard-canceled-human-rights-event-as-its-president-met-with-xi-jinping/?utm_source=actengage&utm_campaign=FreedomMail&utm_medium=email
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China's president Xi Jinping 'personally asked WHO to hold back information about human-to-human transmission and delayed the global response by four to six WEEKS' at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, bombshell report claims
Der Spiegel published bombshell claims from its Federal Intelligence Service
President Xi 'asked WHO to delay global warning about Covid-19 on January 21'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8304471/Chinas-president-Xi-Jinping-personally-requested-delay-COVID-19-pandemic-warning.html
According to the BND: 'On January 21, China's leader Xi Jinping asked WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to hold back information about a human-to-human transmission and to delay a pandemic warning.
'The BND estimates that China's information policy lost four to six weeks to fight the virus worldwide'.
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[Doug] Combining wrongful death suits, medical costs and shutdowns, I wonder what the economic costs of these reckless, negligent, criminal acts were. Likely more than the Chinese GDP.
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As reported here in the US
https://nypost.com/2020/05/10/china-pressured-who-to-delay-global-coronavirus-warning/
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https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/05/04/china_who_violated_post-sars_rules_gop_analysis_finds_143106.html
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https://clarionproject.org/us-at-tip-of-the-iceberg-in-uncovering-china-college-funding-scandal/?utm_source=Clarion+Project+Newsletter&utm_campaign=01b94dc740-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_05_11_02_15&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_60abb35148-01b94dc740-6358189&mc_cid=01b94dc740
https://clarionproject.org/china-college-funding-scandal-gets-worse/?utm_source=Clarion+Project+Newsletter&utm_campaign=01b94dc740-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_05_11_02_15&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_60abb35148-01b94dc740-6358189&mc_cid=01b94dc740
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second post
https://www.theepochtimes.com/ccp-likely-deploying-bot-network-on-twitter-to-spread-pandemic-disinformation-state-department-finds_3344759.html?__sta=vhg.qblkmhbwphzxphzemdsbg%7CTJV&__stm_medium=email&__stm_source=smartech
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third post
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15999/italy-china-trojan-horse
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=55&v=WPhMER6adR0&feature=emb_logo&fbclid=IwAR17g7HqoqXRpw0OJSAqGZJAhU4qea7BLMCjfIIyfCgFOOFHgIvZ2Z7fEqY
https://bitterwinter.org/la-cina-e-vicina-chinese-police-roaming-the-streets-of-italy/
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second post
https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/diplomacy/article/3083949/new-zealand-will-stand-itself-despite-chinas-warnings-over
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http://worldpolicy.org/2015/09/08/china-slips-quietly-into-italy-and-europe/
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Stratfor Worldview
COVID-19 Tensions Place Australian Farmers in China's Crosshairs
Evan Rees
Asia-Pacific Analyst, Stratfor
6 MINS READ
May 13, 2020 | 10:00 GMT
An aerial photo shows villagers sowing highland barley seeds with agricultural machinery in the fields in Lhasa, the capital of China's Tibet Autonomous Region, on April 22, 2020.
Villagers in Lhasa, the capital of China's Tibet Autonomous Region, sow highland barley seeds with agricultural machinery on April 22, 2020.
(Xinhua/Purbu Zhaxi via Getty Images)
China's threat to heavily tariff Australian barley exports will not alone keep Canberra from pushing to investigate Beijing's role in the COVID-19 pandemic. But it will increase the stakes of doing so by making life all the harder for Australia's already struggling farmers. On May 10, Australian grain producers issued a joint statement warning that China has made a provisional decision to impose anti-dumping and anti-subsidy tariffs on Australian barley imports of up to 80.5 percent, effectively shutting down their exports to China. Sources within the Australian government say the timing of these tariffs is linked to the recent uptick in Chinese tensions over COVID-19, though Prime Minister Scott Morrison has publicly since said he does not believe the two are related. Depending on Australia's response, China is expected to make a final decision on the tariffs by May 19. On May 11, Chinese authorities also suspended products from four Australian beef slaughterhouses that comprise 20-35 percent of the country's total beef exports to China, citing health and labeling issues.
On April 22, Morrison announced he had been consulting with U.S., German and French leaders on an independent international investigation into China's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, although he has said there is "no evidence" of the virus leaking from a Chinese lab.
Several days later, China's ambassador to Australia warned that Canberra's call for an international investigation could result in a boycott of Australian goods, citing beef and wine exports in particular, as well as Chinese students enrolling in Australian universities.
China's anti-dumping allegations against Australian barley first surfaced in 2018 and there has been an anti-dumping investigation open for 18 months, partly motivated by Australia's own measures against Chinese steel. Observers, however, had believed the case would eventually be dismissed.
In 2017, China shut down imports from the same four meat processors in addition to three others over similar issues, which took months of diplomacy to resolve.
By weaponizing its crucial agricultural exports, China is trying to influence the rural supporters of Australia's ruling conservative bloc. China already accounts for one-third of Australia's total exports, but has recently become an even more vital market due to China's early COVID-19 recovery amid sluggish global demand elsewhere. A record wildfire season and drought have made Australia's agriculture sector, in particular, all the more dependent on Chinese exports.
Australia's agricultural sector is highly dependent on international markets, exporting 70 percent of its total produce by value between 2014 and 2017. China is also Australia's top agricultural export destination, accounting for one-fifth of its total produce exports.
Decreased barley exports to China would acutely impact Australian farmers, particularly in rural areas of Western Australia. Barley is Australia's largest single grain export to China and its second-largest agricultural export (overshadowed only by wool), accounting for over 11 percent of Australia's $8.06 billion in agricultural exports to the country in 2018. In 2019, China alone received 56.5 percent of Australia's total barley exports.
The 2019 drought has also badly hurt Australian barley exports, causing shipments to plunge 56 percent. The recent recovery in rainfall, however, had raised hopes of a rebound in barley production.
China's barley buyers, by contrast, will feel less of a pinch from a drawdown in Australian shipments given higher domestic availability of barley and alternative feeds in 2020 as the Chinese government halts a stockpiling program in place since 2007. Canada, which supplies 26 percent of China's barley, can also help offset any shortfalls.
Australia has fewer international options to appeal the anti-dumping measures given the current paralysis of the World Trade Organization dispute settlement mechanism over the U.S. refusal to appoint new appellate judges.
China’s threat to heavily tariff barley exports won't keep Australia from pushing to investigate Beijing's role in the pandemic, but it will make life even harder for Canberra's already struggling agricultural sector.
China's economic pressure, however, would have to expand beyond barley and the small group of beef slaughterhouses to compel Australia to reconsider its support of U.S. efforts to counter Beijing's rise. If Beijing threatens more sweeping measures against Australian beef, or starts targeting wool exports, Canberra may be prompted to change its approach. But as things stand, barley producers in Australia have other options.
Barley is less than 1 percent of Australia's overall exports, meaning a Chinese squeeze on the product would not have wide-ranging economic consequences.
Anecdotally, Australian farmers are already adjusting their ongoing planting plans in favor of wheat instead of barley in preparation for the potential Chinese tariffs, although a great deal of barley acreage has already been sown.
Australian barley farmers can also soften the blow by reorienting their products toward the domestic beef producers on the country's east coast, who have been struggling amid recent shortages and increased prices of feed barley.
China will also struggle to expand its economic threat against Australia.
Chinese wool imports may already be down because of slowing textile demand at home.
Mineral exports will be needed for China's economic rebuilding and infrastructure push, and given Australia's proximity and relative cost, China can't realistically afford to add major restrictions.
Virus travel restrictions will depress rates of Chinese tourists and students for some time regardless, so the threat of their removal/boycott also carries less weight.
Given the political stakes of caving to such overt Chinese pressure, the Australian government will continue to push back against Beijing, while still being careful not to alienate one of its most crucial trade partners. Canberra has long been trying to balance its close economic ties with China against the risk of Beijing's rising influence within Australia and its encroachment within the greater Asia Pacific. The uptick in U.S.-China tensions amid the COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated this ongoing trend, presenting a stark choice for Canberra.
Australia has become an important participant in U.S. efforts to ensure freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, most recently joining U.S.-led military exercises in the waterway on April 23.
In March 2020, Australia's government imposed heightened scrutiny on foreign takeovers of domestic companies to defend against potential increasing Chinese influence amid the COVID-19 downturn. This followed a move in February 2018 that saw Australia put in place intensified scrutiny on Chinese investment into its domestic agriculture and electricity sectors.
Australia has been increasingly involved in efforts to economically and diplomatically compete against China in nearby Pacific islands as well, particularly in Papua New Guinea, to maintain sway over the strategic region.
In April 2018, Australia's government banned Chinese company Huawei from providing equipment for its 5G network project.
Canberra also tightened its foreign agent and espionage laws with an eye to increasing scrutiny on entities and politicians with links to China, including media groups and Confucius Institutes.
But even before the reported barley tariff threat, Canberra had distanced itself from U.S. allegations that COVID-19 leaked from a Chinese lab in Wuhan — a sign that it is still trying to strike a balance between maintaining Beijing's economic ties and countering its rise as a global power.
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WSJ
China’s Beef With Australia
Beijing answers call for a global Covid-19 inquiry with trade sanctions.
By The WSJ Editorial Page
May 12, 2020 7:24 pm ET
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo isn’t the only Western official who gets on Beijing’s nerves. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has riled China by calling for a global inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus. Beijing has responded by suspending beef imports from four large Australian slaughterhouses and threatening steep tariffs on barley.
Mr. Morrison rightly says that an independent inquiry into Covid-19 is “entirely sensible and reasonable.” Australia’s plan has been to push for the inquiry at the annual May 18-19 meeting of the World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the World Health Organization. He’d like to see WHO officials empowered to enter nations to investigate disease outbreaks with authority similar to that of U.N. nuclear weapons inspectors.
China isn’t taking this well. On Tuesday a foreign ministry spokesman claimed the ban on Australian beef was due to inspection and quarantine violations, denying the move was meant as economic coercion. But the ban comes after China’s ambassador pointedly warned that China could choose to boycott Australian products such as beef and wine.
China is Australia’s top export market for beef, and the four targeted beef producers account for a third of Australia’s exports to China. Sales to China today account for nearly half of Australia’s barley exports.
China’s use of coercive economic diplomacy to stop an independent coronavirus investigation will make the world wonder what it has to hide. It should also encourage Australia’s friends, not least the U.S., to support its entirely reasonable requests into the origins of the virus so we can better stop the next one.
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On the Ground in Wuhan, Signs of China Stalling Probe of Coronavirus Origins
Beijing at first appeared to be homing in fast on the source of the virus
Outside the closed Huanan market in Wuhan on Jan. 17. GETTY IMAGES
By Jeremy Page and Natasha Khan
May 12, 2020 12:36 pm ET
WUHAN, China — Around 1 a.m. on Dec. 31, Lu Junqing woke to a phone call from his boss at a local disinfection company. Get a team together and head to the Huanan market, he was told: “Bring your best kit.”
Mr. Lu knew the market, a sprawling maze of stalls near a railway station, but had no clue it was the suspected source of a mysterious illness spreading across this city, later identified as Covid-19.
When he got there, local officials directed him to a cluster of stalls selling wild animals for meat or traditional medicine. There were carcasses and caged live specimens, including snakes, dogs, rabbits and badgers, he said.
As his team started to spray disinfectant, the officials began taking samples from the stalls, sewers and goods, Mr. Lu says. They got his team to help with the dead animals, picking out feces and fur with tweezers, and sealing them in plastic bags.
More than four months later, Chinese officials have yet to share with the world any data from the animals Mr. Lu and others say were sampled. Beijing now appears to be stalling international efforts to find the source of the virus amid an escalating U.S. push to blame China for the pandemic, according to interviews with dozens of health experts and officials.
The lack of transparency and international involvement in the search has left room for speculation and blame. It also troubles health experts and officials who say finding the source is key to preventing the same virus from jumping again from animal to human—potentially unleashing another wave of disease.
Initially, Chinese officials seemed to be homing in quickly on the origins of the pathogen, they said. China’s disease-control agency said in January it suspected the virus had come from a wild animal at the Huanan market and that identifying the beast was “only a matter of time.”
Since then, Chinese officials have increasingly questioned whether the virus originated in the country and rejected calls for an international investigation from U.S., Australian and European officials.
China-U.S. relations have deteriorated as each side has aired allegations about the virus’s origins. Chinese officials have suggested, without presenting evidence, that the outbreak stemmed from U.S. soldiers visiting Wuhan for a sports competition, which Washington denies and many scientists have dismissed as groundless.
President Trump and senior U.S. officials have alleged that the virus might have escaped from one of two laboratories in Wuhan doing experiments with coronaviruses in bats but haven’t publicly shared evidence backing that claim. Beijing and the laboratories deny that, and several foreign scientists familiar with those experiments said they doubt the virus leaked that way.
China’s National Health Commission didn’t respond directly to detailed questions about the search for the virus’s origins, saying only that it should be left to scientists.
“The virus should not be linked to any particular country, region or people,” it said in a faxed statement. “Every country in the world should join forces and work together, rather than blaming each other and shirking responsibility.”
China isn’t the first country to resist an international investigation of a health crisis on its territory, and its early focus on controlling the virus is understandable, health experts said. They also said China had learned from the severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, outbreak in 2002-3, when it was slow to close wildlife markets where that virus spread to humans.
Yet China has only made public the genetic sequences of “environmental samples” from the market’s sewers, stalls and a garbage truck—not material directly from any animals—Chinese and foreign researchers say. Some say they’ve been told by Chinese officials that animals taken from the market were destroyed. Several Huanan market vendors said they had not done tests to establish how many of them were infected.
Although Chinese officials said they were tracing the suppliers of wild meat in the market, they have not published any information on those people or animals they handled.
Meanwhile, China has frustrated efforts by foreign officials and researchers to join the hunt. When a World Health Organization mission visited Wuhan and other Chinese cities for nine days in February, Chinese officials and researchers appeared to be committed to the search, according to three people on the trip. They said they didn’t go to the Huanan market, but discussed it and the potential animal origins of the virus with Chinese counterparts.
“Everyone acknowledged the importance of this,” said Clifford Lane, the clinical director at the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who was part of the WHO mission. “My impression was that they were looking at it, they were thinking about it.”
Officials from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention told the mission they would eventually be able to create an epidemiological map of the market showing details such as which animals were where, and which patients visited which section of the market, according to Dr. Lane. Such a map has yet to be shared.
The China CDC didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The WHO has since made regular requests for updates on the search from the Chinese government, but has received none, the organization said in an emailed response to the Journal.
China’s National Health Commission informed it only that those efforts were now being led by the Ministry of Science and Technology, the WHO said. The WHO also requested an update from the ministry but received none, the statement said.
China’s Ministry of Science and Technology didn’t respond to requests for comment.
“Information from these investigations is essential to public health, as it may hold the key to preventing further introductions” into the human population, the WHO said. It also said it was discussing with China another mission to the country, focusing on the virus’ origins. Asked about that, China’s foreign ministry said it would continue to cooperate with the WHO.
The Food and Agriculture Organization, a United Nations body trying to help coordinate research into animal origins of the virus, has been trying to get a team into China for weeks, according to people familiar with discussions. It planned an expert mission to China in mid-March but the trip has been postponed until at least the end of May, one of the people said.
The FAO said in an emailed statement: “We currently have no missions or official travels planned anywhere due to the pandemic situation.”
EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit organization based in New York that has been studying coronaviruses in China for 15 years, has also offered its help, said Peter Daszak, the group’s president. The group helped establish that the coronavirus that caused the SARS outbreak originated in bats and jumped to humans in a market in southern China, probably via catlike mammals called civets.
He said his partners in China had been unable to investigate the market. “It’s really so sensitive now because of the conspiracy theories being put forward in China and the USA. In any case, I suspect it’s simply too late,” he said.
Likening the market to a potential crime scene, he said that since evidence there appeared to have been contaminated or inadvertently destroyed, the better option now was to test more widely for the virus in wild animals and humans who come into contact with them.
“It won’t be fast and it won’t be easy but we will get there, and it will need cooperation between China and other countries including the U.S.,” he said.
Sensitive questions
Many health experts believe the new coronavirus lives naturally in bats and probably jumped to humans via another wild animal, possibly a civet cat or pangolin. The virus could have first jumped to a human at the Huanan market or it could have infected someone elsewhere, possibly a wild-meat trader, who then visited the market.
These are sensitive questions as much of the wild-animal trade in China is illegal and strict sanitary checks are required but not often done on those that can be bred and sold legally.
Coronaviruses: From Animals to Humans
Researchers aren't sure how the novel coronavirus first infected people in China, but the viruses that cause SARS and MERS, which originated in bats, provide clues.
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1
Proteins on the outer shell of the virus allow it to latch onto cells in the host’s respiratory tract. The proteins’ shapes are determined by the virus’s genes.
To infect new hosts, the virus’s genes undergo mutations that alter its surface proteins, allowing them to latch onto the cells of new species.
Bat respiratory tract
Human respiratory tract
Cell
Virus
Gene
Protein
Mutation
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In the case of SARS, the virus jumped from bats to civet cats before gaining the ability to infect humans. In the case of MERS, camels served as the intermediate host.
Original host
Intermediate host
Human
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Coronaviruses can also jump directly to humans, without mutating or passing through an intermediate species.
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Researchers have found the novel coronavirus likely originated in bats, but haven't pinpointed the source of transmission to humans.
Source: Timothy Sheahan, University of North Carolina
Alberto Cervantes and Josh Ulick /THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Huanan vendors and shoppers were reluctant to talk about the wild-meat trade. Some said they had seen various live and dead animals on sale—often in unsanitary conditions—at about 10 of the roughly 1,000 stalls in the market, which mostly sold seafood and closed on Jan. 1.
Among them was Dazhong Livestock and Game, which recently opened a new outlet in another Wuhan market. It offered live or dead animals including baby crocodiles, arctic foxes, raccoon dogs, bamboo rats and civets, according to a version of its now defunct website archived in July 2019.
Another vendor a few stalls down said that Dazhong had sold animals including dogs, snakes, donkeys and birds, often butchering them on site, but that he’d never seen illegal wildlife there.
Wang Konglin, Dazhong’s owner, said in an interview that he stopped selling wild animals several years ago, and has since sold mainly beef and mutton. He said Chinese authorities had tested and questioned him but found no signs of infection or wrongdoing.
“I’ve never seen a pangolin, let alone sold one,” he said. “Or a civet.”
Some researchers and wildlife activists suspect that illicit animals were either not kept at the market or whisked away before Chinese officials arrived.
Mr. Lu, the 31-year-old manager of the Jiangwei Disinfection Company, said he didn’t see any civets, pangolins or bats when he and his team arrived at the market to start spraying it down on Dec. 31.
Officials from the China CDC’s local office were already there, and another team from its Beijing headquarters arrived on Jan. 1, when the market closed and vendors were ordered to leave all food products behind, he said.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visited the China CDC in Beijing on Jan. 30.
PHOTO: CNS/REUTERS
Over the next few days, he said, he saw China CDC staff sampling and removing some of the live and dead animals. The officials got his team to help take about 70 to 80 specimens of feces and fur from the dead ones, mainly dogs and rabbits, he said.
Local officials didn’t mention the disease on the first day, he said, and he used a regular concentration of 500 mg of chlorine dioxide per liter of water that day. He quadrupled the concentration the next day, after he learned more. The mixture was so strong it corroded much of his equipment, he said.
The China CDC’s official account says only that its team from Beijing arrived on Jan. 1 and collected 585 “environment samples” from sewers, stalls and a garbage truck, and that 33 of them tested positive for the virus. Of those, 14 were from the area trading wildlife, it said. It doesn’t mention animal samples.
When health experts from Taiwan and Hong Kong visited Wuhan in mid-January, a local CDC official told them no wild animals were found at the market, and such things were rarely eaten locally, according to one person present, who also said there was no discussion about other kinds of animals.
Ian Lipkin, a virologist at Columbia University who visited China in late January to help combat the virus, said his Chinese contacts told him that the China CDC did take samples from animals and meat at the market.
Dr. Lipkin, who also helped tackle SARS, said that George Gao, the China CDC chief, was initially convinced that the culprit was a bamboo rat, a rodent often sold as meat in China.
“After they went through and did this exhaustive search of the live and the dead and the frozen animals in various freezers, and they didn’t come up with anything, they had to revise their model,” said Dr. Lipkin.
He said Dr. Gao had told him that Chinese scientists had found the virus in the environmental samples but had been unable to identify which animal they likely came from.
There was “too much contamination, various animal parts, various species,” Dr. Lipkin said. Dr. Gao didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Dr. Lipkin said he and a Chinese counterpart had since proposed other ways to identify the source of the virus, including by testing blood samples of pneumonia patients across China from before December to see if it might have originated somewhere other than Wuhan.
Chinese authorities have yet to provide access to the relevant samples, however, according to Dr. Lipkin’s Chinese counterpart, Lu Jiahai at Sun Yat-sen University.
The consensus that bats were the most likely original host derives largely from a research paper published on Jan. 23, which concluded that the genome of the new virus was 96% identical to that of another coronavirus previously found in bats from southwest China.
Among the paper’s authors was Shi Zhengli, an expert on coronaviruses in bats at the Wuhan Institute of Virology—one of the places that U.S. officials have suggested was the source of the virus. She didn’t respond to requests for comment.
A week later, China CDC researchers published a paper also concluding that bats could be the original hosts, but suggesting the virus spread to humans via another wild animal at the Huanan market, because most bats hibernated in December and none were sold or found at the market.
The conclusion that the virus likely came from an animal made it an issue not just for the WHO but for a lesser-known international body of which China is also a member, the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health, or OIE. It brought together experts from around the world to form an informal advisory group, which held the first of several teleconferences on Jan. 31.
The meeting’s minutes say that samples were taken from several animal species at the market, and none tested positive, but “information about the number of samples and species sampled was not available.”
The group recommended a thorough investigation of the wildlife trade in China, including any criminal involvement, as well as management of wet markets in Wuhan, among others. It is unclear how many of its recommendations China has adopted.
The OIE said in an emailed statement that it was liaising with Chinese veterinary authorities and had offered to help investigate the origins of the virus but no arrangements had been made yet.
It said Chinese experts were involved in several of its technical groups. The agency’s minutes in recent months say the experts shared that Chinese scientists had tested domestic animals as well as animals on fur farms and found no trace of the virus. There has been no mention of the Huanan market in the minutes since the first teleconference in January. Some researchers believe the opportunity to investigate the market has long since passed.
“The problem is that this should have been done in late December or early January,” said Dirk U. Pfeiffer, a professor of veterinary medicine and epidemiology at the City University of Hong Kong who is a member of the OIE’s advisory group.
“It is now too late, which means we will have to rely on other indirect evidence, and therefore proof of cause will be close to impossible.”
—Qianwei Zhang in Wuhan and Phred Dvorak in Tokyo contributed to this article.
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Not very nuanced with regard to President Trump, but a good list of Chinese perfidy.
Trump’s Illusory Hard Line on China
By MICHAEL BRENDAN DOUGHERTY
May 13, 2020 2:45 PM
President Donald Trump meets with China’s President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, June 29, 2019. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
The president has not been as tough on Beijing as he’d like you to think.
How much of what we hear from day to day is really just meant to please the Chinese Communist Party? When LeBron James said that Daryl Morey’s pro-Hong Kong comments were “either misinformed or not really educated on the situation,” had he engaged in a direct conversation with a Chinese dignitary or had the NBA merely relayed its concerns to him on China’s behalf? Did some officious CCP official get a pat on the head when the World Health Organization kept praising China’s response to the emergence of a new coronavirus in Wuhan before it declared a global health emergency? When Governor Andrew Cuomo started bizarrely referring to the coronavirus as the “European virus,” was he hoping to preserve Chinese investment in New York?
It’s no longer paranoid or irrational to ask these questions. This week, an op-ed signed by the EU’s ambassador to China and his counterparts from the 27 EU member states was revealed to have been censored and edited by the Chinese government, apparently without the permission or foreknowledge of many of the authors. How common is such chicanery?
We’ve had lots of recent occasions to see China’s pettiness. The CCP made Marriott shut down its own website for having referred to Macau and Tibet as something other than part of China. The Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 tracker quickly changed Taiwan to “Taipei and environs” amid what one presumes was Chinese pressure. German-owned Mercedes is just one company that has had to ask China’s forgiveness for merely mentioning the Dalai Lama. The United Kingdom once had to read an abject statement of apology aloud to Chinese dignitaries after committing the same sin.
Australian prime minister Scott Morrison is one leader who seems to have lost any illusions about China. He’s not calling COVID-19 a “European virus,” and he has demanded an investigation of how the World Health Organization botched things in Wuhan. In response, Chinese state-media outlets have urged consumer boycotts of Australian agricultural products and called Australia “gum stuck to the bottom of China’s shoe.”
China doesn’t just get the first helpings of BS, it gets the bull as well. Going back to the 1990s, Smithfield has a history of preferring foreign workers because native-born workers are easier to unionize than illegal workers. As globalization advanced, it also found it preferred foreign owners: It was bought by the China-backed Shuanghui Group in 2013. Now, English is just one of the top ten languages at the Smithfield pork-processing plant in Sioux Falls, S.D.
The language barrier that Smithfield deliberately creates through the liberal use of our “guest worker” visa system is not just a major impediment to labor organization. It turns out to be a big impediment to communicating public-health information, and a major reason that the Sioux Falls plant became the site of one of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks in the country.
NOW WATCH: 'Trump Seeks to Reduce Reliance on China'
Which brings us to Donald Trump. Trump was elected in no small part because of his opposition to immigration and globalization. He asked who really benefited from these phenomena, and proposed doing something about them. China, as a Communist nation that profits remora-like from the global market that it didn’t build and doesn’t defend or respect, was prominent on his ostensible list of targets, and continued to be after he took office.
Unfortunately, the key word there is “ostensible.” As is the case on so many issues, Trump is not as tough on China as he’d like everyone to think. Yes, he initiated a U.S.–China “trade war” aimed at reining in Beijing’s economic malfeasance, but he has steadfastly refused to bring up any ancillary issues about the human-rights abuses in Xinjiang or the political abuses in Hong Kong. Yes, he signed a bill aimed at pushing back on the latter abuses after it passed Congress with overwhelming, bipartisan support, but his secretary of state has now delayed its implementation. Yes, he’s called COVID-19 the “Chinese virus” and bragged about his travel ban on China. But his administration somehow let nearly half a million people through anyway, and he’s proven just as likely to praise the Chinese regime in stomach-churning terms as he is to scold it:
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
One of the many great things about our just signed giant Trade Deal with China is that it will bring both the USA & China closer together in so many other ways. Terrific working with President Xi, a man who truly loves his country. Much more to come!
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Trump’s supporters might plausibly claim that his reluctance to more forcefully attack Xi’s regime in public comes from a desire to preserve the trade deal he negotiated. They’d have a much harder time arguing that the trade deal is actually a desirable outcome for the U.S. All in all, Trump’s administration deep-sixed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would have put more pressure on China, then engaged in a short, inconclusive series of trade skirmishes with China that did nothing to repatriate industry to the U.S., and then announced the trade deal while giving Xi a tongue bath.
59
Even if, as seems likely, the deal was always a cynical ploy to get Wall Street frothing in an election year, that gambit has been overcome by events, namely the global pandemic. So why is our “nationalist” president still sticking with this trade agreement? Why can’t he criticize the Chinese government?
Who benefits from the rise of this new American “nationalism,” anyway?
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16016/china-coronavirus-how-the-eu-is-betraying-europe
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May 15, 2020 View On Website
Open as PDF
The Reality of China’s Push Into Eastern Europe
By: Ridvan Bari Urcosta
Most countries naturally tend to rely on their strengths to increase power and influence abroad. For China, this means using its substantial economic resources and propaganda (i.e. manipulation of its public image) to coerce foreign countries into partnering with Beijing and the broader international community into believing it can compete on a global scale. Its efforts to boost its influence abroad have, of course, been concentrated on Southeast and South Asia, but more attention has been paid to China’s push into Europe, particularly Eastern Europe. The region has turned into a symbolic battlefield for the United States, Russia and now China as they each compete for power and prestige in the region.
China even dubbed 2020 the “Year of Europe,” signaling a desire to improve ties across this strategically important market. When Beijing launched the campaign, the U.S. and EU were in the early stages of what looked to be an emerging trade war, and China saw an opportunity to take advantage of the situation. Much has happened since the beginning of 2020, most notably a global pandemic, but even before the coronavirus, China’s ability to increase its influence in Europe was always questionable because it would have to rely so heavily on propaganda and manipulation as it championed its achievements in building diplomatic bridges, constructing key supply networks and infrastructure, and providing much-needed credit for cash-starved countries that didn’t want to rely on Western institutions.
But in reality, China’s engagement with Eastern Europe is not nearly as strong as the headlines suggest, and its weaknesses will only be exacerbated by the pandemic. For both sides, the goals of engagement have little to do with strengthening relations between them. Rather, Beijing is using its relationship with countries in the region to expand its leverage against the U.S. and the European Union. Likewise, Eastern European countries are using China to increase their negotiating power over Washington and Brussels, both of which are wary of China’s increasing presence across Eurasia. Ultimately, they see each other as a source of leverage in their relationships with other critical players rather than strategic partners in their economic and security agendas.
At the center of China’s outreach to Eastern Europe is its Belt and Road Initiative, an ambitious plan to revamp the supply chain across Eurasia using loans, often with unfavorable terms to the borrowers, to build infrastructure that will connect the entire Eurasian landmass via roads, rail and ports. The project will allow China to sell its exports, a critical part of its economy, to markets abroad using a supply chain that Beijing itself helped build and largely controls. In the 2010s, China’s expansion into Eastern Europe has been focused in large part on rail. The so-called China-Europe Express, a series of railway routes connecting China to European markets, requires the participation of countries in Eastern Europe, the gateway to other valuable markets in the European Union, most notably Germany.
But the rail project isn’t as big of an achievement as it’s been touted to be, mostly by Beijing itself. All the railway routes in the China-Europe Express have actually existed since the Soviet era. The project, then, is really about repurposing and upgrading existing infrastructure rather than building an entire network from scratch – which would be a much more ambitious and complicated project. Constructing an entirely new rail route to Europe would require getting the approval of many countries through which this network would pass, a politically challenging endeavor particularly given that China prefers to conduct negotiations on a bilateral basis. While some countries may be open to accepting China’s help to improve their own infrastructure, they may not be willing to participate in Beijing’s broader vision for Eurasia. In addition, this project has run into technical complications, including the lack of standardization of rail gauges among the different railways, which slows down the transit of goods. Financing is also an issue. Upgrading this rail system would require massive investments, and China simply does not have the capital to complete such a project. Even before the pandemic, its economy was struggling with problems that were only aggravated by the U.S.-China trade war. In fact, Beijing’s investments in Europe fell to 11.7 billion euros ($12.6 billion) last year, just a third of the total at its peak in 2016.
(click to enlarge)
China has made many grand announcements about BRI’s achievements in Europe, but in reality, some of its most high-profile projects in the most geopolitically significant Eastern European countries have not been executed as Beijing promised. In Romania, for example, the government scrapped a deal earlier this year with a Chinese energy firm to construct two reactors for the Cernavoda nuclear power plant. Similarly, plans to have a Chinese company help construct the Tarnita-Lapustesti Hydropower Plant were shelved in 2015. In Hungary, at least seven projects agreed to by China have failed to get off the ground, including a cargo hub at the Budapest airport and a biotechnology project. Most notably, the Budapest-Belgrade Railway, for which China would provide the bulk of the financing, has yet to take off after seven years of talks. Both the EU and observers within Hungary have criticized the project because it would require Serbia and Hungary to accept massive loans from Beijing that these countries are unlikely to pay back.
In Poland, President Andrzej Duda and Chinese President Xi Jinping signed a strategic partnership deal in 2016, but little has come of it. In fact, relations between the two countries are arguably worse now, after an employee from Chinese telecom company Huawei was arrested in Poland last year for allegedly spying for the Chinese government.
In another example, Czech President Milos Zeman opted not to go to China for the 17+1 summit in April, in part because China had not lived up to commitments regarding investment. When Chinese President Xi Jinping was in Prague in 2016, he promised around half a billion euros of investment into the Czech economy within the next two years. To date, none of these funds have arrived. The Chinese-Czech relationship has become increasingly tense, especially after the Czech government improved relations with Taiwan in 2019 and voiced support for the establishment of official bilateral diplomatic relations.
China has relied heavily on propaganda to conceal these shortcomings. In 2012, Beijing launched the “16+1” initiative to improve diplomatic engagement with and strengthen pro-China sentiment in Central and Eastern European states in the EU as well as Balkan states. Greece joined the initiative in 2019, making it the 17+1. This was, of course, accompanied by EU-China summits and a series of high-profile promises and nonbinding memorandums of understanding on future projects. By hosting such events and making such announcements, China elevated its profile in Eastern European affairs and gave the world the impression that it was succeeding in the region. It was a savvy public relations move, but no substantial advancements have come with it. China’s failure to deliver on promised funds has started to create problems with the EU, as Brussels has criticized China for its attempts to separate Central and Eastern European members from the rest of the bloc.
(click to enlarge)
On Dec. 5, Pew Research published a report on opinions toward China from around the world. The Central and Eastern Europeans are somewhat divided in their assessments. More Bulgarians (55 percent), Poles (47 percent) and Lithuanians (45 percent) have favorable than unfavorable views of China, and Hungarians (40 percent favorable, and against 37 percent unfavorable) are nearly evenly divided. But a plurality of Slovaks (48 percent unfavorable) and a majority of Czechs (57 percent unfavorable and only 27 percent favorable) have negative views of China.
Despite China’s difficulties in delivering on its promises, Eastern European countries can still benefit from publicly backing the relationship. Flirting with China enables Eastern European states to build up leverage and bargaining power they would not have otherwise. In some respects, it is another factor to help them counterbalance Russian threats. For much of its existence, Eastern Europe has been a pawn in power struggles between Russia and the West. Central and Eastern Europe has generally focused their strategic energies outward, toward the Baltic, Black and Mediterranean seas – toward the Rimland, in Spykman’s terminology – rather than inward, toward the Heartland. For these countries, opening up new avenues into the Heartland to connect with China threatens to overthrow the traditional Russia-West competition. It immediately creates geopolitical tension because it signifies Chinese expansion in the spheres of influence of both the United States and Russia, in the case of Belarus.
The projects of most value for Eastern Europe to engage in this game are those of a strategic nature. A prime example is the Rail Baltica project, which aims to connect the railways from Western Europe to Finland via Poland and the Baltic states along a new European standard gauge. In Chinese plans, such a railway has strategic importance in the delivery of Chinese goods to all corners of Europe, but for the United States and NATO it has strategic importance in terms of military mobility and readiness. Even if China’s ability to follow through is in doubt, the discussion is enough that Washington must pay attention. Eastern Europe relies on the U.S. presence in the region to counter Russian influence, something China cannot offer. If China were to decide to play a geopolitical role, it would immediately make Russia and China regional competitors; but Beijing is not ready for such a role and so is concentrating on advancing economic connectivity. As long as the United States views its ties with Eastern Europe as strategically important, it maintains the upper hand over Eastern Europe in the relationship. The Eastern European states’ talks with China, no matter how superficial, are done with the goal of reducing the imbalance in the relationship with the United States. The U.S. has identified China as one of its top threats, and Western Europe is also keeping a watchful eye on Beijing. The days when China could expand its influence unchecked are over, even if Beijing’s strategy for engaging with Eastern Europe reflects its commercial needs — and even if its ability to deliver is limited.
For both the EU and the U.S., China poses a threat to national security, with a case in point being 5G. In an assessment report (“Cybersecurity of 5G networks - EU Toolbox of risk mitigating measures) that the European Union issued earlier this year, Brussels called for improvements in the bloc’s foreign direct investment screening mechanism so that states could better detect foreign investments in the 5G value chain that may threaten the security or public order of more than one EU member state. This has proved a divisive issue, given that some states are not convinced that China is a national security threat. For example, Chinese telecom giant Huawei employs around 2,000 people in Hungary, where it has invested $1.2 billion since 2005 according to company figures, and now Hungary expects $180 million in investments from China for the construction of the second-largest Huawei supply center in the world. Notably, Poland and Romania, staunch U.S. allies, rejected Chinese involvement in their 5G networks in favor of cooperation with the United States.
During the Cold War, Eastern Europe was the most important region in the geopolitical rivalry between the superpowers. It now seems that in the new international, multipolar world order, Central and Eastern Europe – and Europe as a whole – will play a serious role. Chinese success irritates both the U.S. and Russia, especially success in the European continent, which is the traditional domain for both. China does not truly challenge U.S. interests there, but for those states, flirting with China does give them more leverage in their interactions with Washington.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15972/china-coronavirus-dissidents-arrests
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https://www.wionews.com/india-news/now-chinese-websites-claim-kyrgyzstan-kazakhstan-part-of-china-draws-ire-of-central-asia-298057/amp
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https://www.wionews.com/india-news/now-chinese-websites-claim-kyrgyzstan-kazakhstan-part-of-china-draws-ire-of-central-asia-298057/amp
Sounds very much like some German Nazi annexations of a previous century.
How slow will the world be to recognize the threat?
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Update, this writer seems to agree:
"China expert says communist regime unlike anything 'since the Third Reich' "
https://campusreform.org/?ID=14885
China expert Gordon Chang joined Campus Reform to discuss the communist regime's attempt to infiltrate U.S. colleges.
Chang said the communist regime is unlike anything "since the Third Reich."
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/05/15/rep-liz-cheney-china-deliberately-exported-global-economic-devastation-via-coronavirus/
"...said Cheney. “It’s also without question — it cannot be challenged — that the government of China shut down travel from Wuhan into the rest of their country while they allowed travel from Wuhan into the rest of the world. That is without question, and that alone tells you [the Chinese government] knew that they had human-to-human transmission.”
Cheney continued, “They knew it was so dangerous that they didn’t want it in the rest of their country, but yet they caused it to be exported to the rest of the world, and I think that they pretty clearly did that. I’m sure they understood the economic devastation this virus was going to cause, and I think they made a very clear, calculated decision that they didn’t want to be the only country having to face that devastation.”
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Not afraid to speak truth. Already in R. leadership, she might make a great future Speaker of the House.
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8331081/China-imposes-80-cent-tariff-Australia-amid-coronavirus-probe-demands.html
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Mutually assured destruction in Sino-Australian trade?
On Monday, Beijing said it would impose an 80 percent anti-dumping and anti-subsidy tariff on Australian barley, one of the country’s top three annual agriculture exports, about half of which typically goes to China. Australia said it would respond to the barley duties with a challenge at the World Trade Organization, which works slowly in normal times and has nearly ground to a halt lately. This follows Chinese suspensions of imports of beef from four Australian slaughterhouses, or some 35 percent of Australian exports of the commodity to China. And Beijing may not be done yet. Chinese officials reportedly have measures targeting Australian seafood, oatmeal, fruit, wine and cheese locked and loaded. Chinese state media in recent weeks has also warned of consumer boycotts.
China is apparently upset about Australia’s perfunctory calls for investigations into the source of the coronavirus outbreak. But, as we’ve argued in the context of the U.S.-China trade war, tariffs often end up hurting a country’s own businesses and consumers as much as or more than those in the country they’re targeting. And given that Australia and China entered a free trade agreement in late 2015, these actions may hinder Beijing’s goals for striking other trade pacts. So it’s unclear just how long Beijing may be willing to strike a hard line.
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China’s ‘Wolf Warrior’ Diplomats Are Ready to Fight
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has adopted an aggressive new stance, spurred by Beijing’s push to increase its global influence
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian in Beijing on April 8. CARLOS GARCIA RAWLINS/REUTERS
By Chun Han Wong and Chao Deng
May 19, 2020 9:58 am ET
Beijing’s envoy in Paris promised a fight with France should China’s interests be threatened, then engaged in a public spat with his host country over the coronavirus pandemic. The Chinese embassy in Sri Lanka boasted of China’s handling of the pandemic to an activist on Twitter who had fewer than 30 followers. Beijing canceled a nationwide tour by the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra after a tussle with the city’s mayor over Taiwan.
As China asserts itself globally, its diplomats around the world are taking on foes big and small.
The brash new attitude, playing out on social media, in newsprint and across negotiating tables, marks a turn for China’s once low-key diplomats. It’s part of a deliberate shift within the Foreign Ministry, spurred on by Chinese leaders seeking to claim what they see as their nation’s rightful place in the world, in the face of an increasingly inward-looking U.S.
China’s state media describe it as a “Wolf Warrior” ethos—named for a nationalistic Chinese film franchise about a Rambo-like soldier-turned-security contractor who battles American-led mercenary groups.
The feuding has escalated as the Foreign Ministry seeks to enforce China’s narratives on the coronavirus pandemic, bickering with Western powers and even some friendly countries.
In Venezuela, a major recipient of Beijing’s aid, the Chinese embassy lashed out at local legislators who described the pathogen that causes Covid-19 as the “China coronavirus.” Those legislators, the embassy said in a March statement on its website, were suffering from a “political virus.”
“Since you are already very sick from this, hurry up to ask for proper treatment,” the statement said. “The first step might be to wear the masks and shut up.” China’s Foreign Ministry and the embassy didn’t respond to requests for comment.
“Every time the Americans make an allegation, the French media always report them a day or two later,” Mr. Lu told French newspaper L’Opinion last month about coverage of China’s handling of the coronavirus. “They howl with the wolves, to make a big fuss about lies and rumors about China.”
Mr. Lu and the embassy didn’t respond to requests for comment.
For decades, Chinese diplomats had largely heeded the words of Deng Xiaoping, the reformist leader who exhorted his countrymen to “hide our light and bide our time”—keeping a low profile while accumulating China’s strengths.
Beijing became more outspoken as its economic power grew. This trend accelerated under Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who has staked his legitimacy on a “China Dream” of restoring national glory and pursued an increasingly uncompromising posture in international affairs.
Much of the growing assertiveness is aimed at stoking national pride back home—a key tool in the ruling Communist Party’s political playbook—and rebalancing the international order in ways that promote the party’s interests. Under Mr. Xi, China has cast itself as a responsible world power, offering leadership in global governance and pouring loans and aid into developing countries.
“Chinese citizens increasingly expect the Chinese government to stand tall and be proud in the world,” said Jessica Chen Weiss, a Cornell University associate professor who has studied the role of nationalism in China’s foreign relations. “What China really wants under Xi Jinping is a world that is safe for his continued leadership.”
In pursuing a more pugnacious style, the Communist Party is pushing to capitalize on a U.S. retreat from global institutions under President Trump’s “America First” approach. China has worked to increase its influence in international organizations, such as the United Nations, that the Trump administration has disparaged.
Mr. Xi has ramped up the Communist Party’s control over the Foreign Ministry, whose officials had been suspected by some within the party to be less ideologically committed due to their interactions with foreign cultures and counterparts.
Last year, Qi Yu, a specialist in ideological training with no prior diplomatic experience, became the Foreign Ministry’s Communist Party secretary—an unusual appointment for a post traditionally held by a vice foreign minister. A former deputy chief of the party’s powerful personnel department, Mr. Qi has often stressed loyalty to Mr. Xi’s agenda and reiterated his demands for a more combative posture in foreign affairs.
Chinese diplomats must “firmly counterattack against words and deeds in the international arena that assault the leadership of China’s Communist Party and our country’s socialist system,” Mr. Qi wrote in an essay published in December.
Chinese diplomats have displayed flashes of truculence in the past, chiefly on core interests like disputed territorial claims, foreign visits by the Dalai Lama and perceived pro-independence activism by other figures Beijing sees as separatist threats. They have pushed Beijing’s narratives on a much wider range of issues lately, from its treatment of Muslim minorities to Chinese aid and loans to developing countries.
In Prague, Chinese diplomats have tussled with Mayor Zdeněk Hřib, a 38-year-old from the Pirate Party, who flies the Tibetan flag at city hall. At a New Year’s gathering in the mayor’s official residence last year, Mr. Hřib refused a demand from the Chinese ambassador to kick out a Taiwanese representative mingling with other diplomats, according to diplomats present and Czech media reports.
Mr. Hřib had also insisted on removing a “one China” clause, which refers to China’s territorial claims over Taiwan, from Prague’s sister-city pact with Beijing.
Beijing responded by calling off a 14-city China tour by the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. After Mr. Hřib moved to scrap the sister cities agreement, the Chinese embassy issued a Facebook post warning Prague to “change its approach as soon as possible.... Otherwise, the city’s own interests will suffer.” Plans for China tours by other Czech music ensembles have since unraveled.
“They didn’t see us as a partner,” Mr. Hřib said in an interview, referring to the Chinese government. “They saw us as their subordinates.” The embassy didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The pandemic has provided the biggest test of China’s Wolf Warrior diplomacy. As other governments struggled to contain the coronavirus, Beijing trumpeted its iron-fisted response and won praise for providing critical medical gear to countries in need. It also pushed back at critics who questioned its early handling of the contagion.
In February, the Chinese embassy in Nepal said it lodged complaints with Nepal’s Kathmandu Post and “reserves the right of further action” after the English-language newspaper, with a circulation of less than 100,000, ran a syndicated opinion piece criticizing China’s coronavirus response that featured an image of a Chinese yuan note with Mao Zedong wearing a face mask.
Diplomats and state media have denounced U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for claiming that the coronavirus may have spread from a Chinese lab. After Beijing’s envoy to Australia hinted at economic repercussions for Canberra’s push for a coronavirus inquiry, China this month suspended imports from four Australian meat-processing companies, citing regulatory violations. It also imposed antidumping and antisubsidy tariffs totaling 80.5% on Australian barley. Australia described the meat-related infractions as “minor technical breaches” and denied dumping or subsidizing its barley exports to China.
China diplomatic Twitter accounts created
Sources: Alliance for Securing Democracy; Twitter
Note: Data through April 22. An additional 31accounts were created prior to 2018.
.accounts
Jan. ’19
July
Jan. ’20
0
4
8
12
16
20
Total monthly tweets
Sources: Alliance for Securing Democracy; Twitter
Retweets
Tweets
Jan. ’20
April
0
2,500
5,000
7,500
10,000
12,500
15,000
17,500
20,000
Twitter has emerged as a key battleground for Chinese diplomats, especially after the Foreign Ministry promoted Zhao Lijian, a prolific Twitter user previously assigned to the Chinese embassy in Pakistan, as one of its spokesmen in August. Mr. Zhao recently added fuel to a U.S.-China spat over the coronavirus’s origins by pushing a theory to his more than 600,000 followers that the pathogen was brought to China by the U.S. military—an allegation that Washington has denied.
Chinese diplomatic accounts now total at least 137, up from 38 a year ago, according to the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a Washington-based bipartisan advocacy group. The most active send out hundreds of tweets each month, on par with the most active diplomatic accounts of Russia.
“Total death in #China #pandemic is 3344 till today, much smaller than your western ‘high class’ governments,” the Chinese embassy in Sri Lanka wrote on Twitter last month in response to a Sri Lankan activist who had criticized the Chinese government as “low class.”
The activist, Chirantha Amerasinghe, who had fewer than 30 followers at the time and now has just over 40, said he was surprised the embassy responded by seemingly mocking other countries with higher death tolls. The embassy didn’t respond to queries.
China’s ambassador to France, Mr. Lu, has risen through the Foreign Ministry’s ranks over the years as he advocated for tougher diplomacy. In a 2016 paper, published when he was policy-research director for the Communist Party’s top foreign-policy committee, Mr. Lu said Chinese diplomats must battle with the West and convince more countries to “accept China, as a major Eastern power, standing at the top of the world.”
As ambassador to Canada, Mr. Lu accused Ottawa of “Western egotism and white supremacy” over its late 2018 arrest, at Washington’s request, of a top executive at Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies Co.
In Paris, where Mr. Lu arrived last summer, he and the Chinese embassy have racked up more than 50 media engagements in less than a year, including interviews, briefings and newspaper op-eds—nearly three times as many as his predecessor had logged over five years in the job.
“I hope I don’t have to fight against France. The best is for us to work together,” Mr. Lu said in August at his first media briefing as envoy in Paris, when asked how he would help China speak up internationally. “But if anything that harms our fundamental interests happens, then I would have to fight.”
In April, the Chinese embassy sparked outrage throughout France after it published an essay, attributed to a “Chinese diplomat stationed in Paris,” that claimed nursing-home caregivers had abandoned residents to die. The essay also accused Taiwanese authorities, whom some French lawmakers supported, of using a racist slur against the World Health Organization’s director-general—allegations that Taipei denied.
The embassy later published a clarification, saying the essay wasn’t referring to French nursing homes and didn’t allege that French lawmakers used the racist slur.
On Twitter, the embassy has argued with and blocked at least one critic. It also “liked” a number of posts criticizing the West, including one saying democracies fail to treat sick patients.
In his April interview with L’Opinion, Mr. Lu dismissed claims that Chinese diplomacy has become aggressive. “Rather, it’s a form of proactive diplomacy,” he said.
The U.S. and some other Western governments have pushed back against Beijing, accusing China of bungling its initial coronavirus response and calling for an international probe into the pathogen’s origins. Some analysts say the squabbling has cost China a chance to earn global goodwill, exposing the limits of Beijing’s reliance on abrasive rhetoric and material assistance to dissuade critics and win favor.
China is “making a lot of headway because they have a lot of resources,” but its approach hasn’t won it many friends, said Oriana Skylar Mastro, a Georgetown University assistant professor who studies Chinese security policy.
Signs of dissatisfaction with the Wolf Warrior approach have begun to surface among China’s diplomatic old guard.
Fu Ying, a vice foreign minister from 2009 to 2013, wrote a newspaper commentary in April stressing that China must pay attention to how its messages are received by international audiences.
“A country’s power in international discourse relates not just to its right to speak up on the global stage, but more to the effectiveness and influence of its discourse,” Ms. Fu wrote in the party’s flagship People’s Daily.
In a recent interview widely shared on Chinese social media, Yuan Nansheng, a retired Chinese diplomat whose posts included ambassador to Zimbabwe and consul-general in San Francisco, said China’s diplomacy “should get ‘stronger’ and not simply ‘harder.’ ”
“History proves that when foreign policy gets hijacked by public opinion, it inevitably brings disastrous results,” he said.
—Drew Hinshaw contributed to this article.
Write to Chun Han Wong at chunhan.wong@w
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China Is Still the Next China
The pandemic has made the U.S. decoupling push both more urgent and more difficult to achieve.
By Phillip Orchard -May 11, 2020Open as PDF
At the end of last year, the coronavirus slipped through China’s borders. Now, Washington wants U.S. firms in China to do the same, evidenced by the Trump administration’s recent announcement of a whole-of-government initiative to move U.S. production and supply chain dependency away from China. This week, lawmakers are expected to introduce White House-backed legislation that would give subsidies to U.S. manufacturers who leave China. The White House, which in the midst of its trade war last year explicitly called for U.S. firms to come home, is also reportedly imposing new tariffs on imports from China and gradually expanding its list of Chinese-made products deemed a national security risk.
Washington is not alone in feeling that Chinese consolidation of supply chains for many essential goods was exposed by the coronavirus as an intolerable threat. In early April, Japan unveiled a $2.2 billion funding package to shift key supply chains away from China, and Germany has called for an EU-wide effort to bolster continental manufacturing of essential health care goods. Meanwhile, alternative low-cost manufacturing hubs are waiting with open arms. India, for example, is reportedly courting more than 1,000 U.S. firms in China and setting up special economic zones twice the size of Luxembourg to house them. With the U.S. apparently warming back up to multilateral trade and investment blocs in the form of its proposed “Economic Prosperity Network” – essentially a repackaged and expanded Trans-Pacific Partnership – the prospects of a coordinated effort to construct a more stable global trading system are increasing.
But if the U.S and China are indeed moving toward an economic divorce, it’ll be the sort of “it’s complicated” breakup where neither side really has the stomach for the legal fees or the emotional strength to remain estranged. And the coronavirus pandemic will in some ways make the break up even more difficult. In short, volatility in the global trading system isn’t going away.
Long Time Coming
The U.S.-China economic relationship was rocky even before the outbreak. The seeds were sown nearly half a century ago, when Western firms began rerouting their supply chains through East Asia and thereby igniting a boom in global trade and prosperity. Following China’s accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001, the center of gravity of global manufacturing shifted firmly to the Middle Kingdom, where a bottomless labor pool allowed foreign firms to unlock unimaginable economies of scale. China became the world’s largest exporter in 2009. Until about a decade ago, the U.S. heartily supported its efforts. It developed a taste for low-cost imports and fell head over heels for Chinese consumers and investors. It nurtured hopes that China would be disinclined to challenge the global system if it was integrated with that system. At times, the U.S. and China’s commercial relations stabilized their broader bilateral relationship.
The trade-offs of this system crystallized after the 2008 financial crisis, which in the U.S. exposed how the middle class had been gutted by the loss of manufacturing and revealed the structural problems that fueled inequality. Beijing, stung by the brief collapse in Western demand and under immense social pressures of its own, figured it had little choice but to more aggressively move into high-value industries that more advanced economies have dominated for decades – even if it had to renege on its WTO commitments and antagonize countries whose consumers fueled China’s rise. Many in the U.S. believed they had underestimated China’s ability to make the leap into more advanced manufacturing, and underestimated just how much leverage Chinese consumers and manufacturers would give Beijing – and how willing it was to use its leverage over foreign firms and foreign governments. China’s external vulnerabilities, meanwhile, compelled it to see just how much its newfound economic and military heft could be used to reshape the regional order around its needs.
In other words, the change from competition to confrontation between the U.S. and China has been a long time coming. The launch of the U.S.-China trade and tech wars in 2017 merely announced its arrival. COVID-19 kicked it into overdrive.
The pandemic did this, in part, by exposing just how much China had become a single point of failure in supply chains of essential goods in critical sectors like pharma. For example, China produces around 80-90 percent of the global supply of active ingredients for antibiotics. Chinese export restrictions and bottlenecks led to shortages of personal protective equipment, test kits and vital medical equipment, including products made by U.S. firms in China. The pandemic also exposed chronic quality control problems in China, with several embattled countries having to discard much-needed shipments of faulty Chinese masks and test kits. (To be fair, the global rush to source pandemic supplies has created a profiteer’s paradise just about everywhere.)
But if the issue were merely about making the system more resilient to unexpected crises – eliminating chokepoints in supplies of essential goods, building in redundancies, and so forth – there wouldn’t be nearly the sense of urgency behind the push to decouple. Most U.S. companies will be wary enough of overdependence on chokepoints in China to want to diversify on their own accord. The U.S. government and others could just boost stockpiles of essential goods, incentivize domestic production in key sectors, and establish plans in advance to ensure diversity of foreign suppliers and so minimize the risk of disruption at home. Indeed, emergency preparation could be a cornerstone of a U.S.-China relationship defined by cooperation against mutual threats, with the U.S. combining its R&D power with China’s unparalleled production capacity to prevent the next super-spreading virus from doing nearly so much damage.
But, of course, this isn’t just about the pandemic. It’s also about existing fault lines in the international system and immense new political pressures unleashed by COVID-19. Beijing is fronting as a country that’s spearheading global cooperation. Yet, it evidently can’t help but spread disinformation about the pandemic both at home and abroad – and it’s mostly still acting like a government with a crippling fear of mass dissent. Collaboration is taking a back seat to other needs in Washington, too. Accusations that China somehow intentionally unleashed the virus on the world are nonsensical, as is the notion that China needs to pay a price to address problems that nearly laid waste to its own economy and thus the ruling Communist Party. Revenge is not a valid strategic motivation, and punitive actions typically backfire – sometimes catastrophically so. Still, this is an election year, so the Trump administration has plenty of reason to keep public anger focused squarely on Beijing’s misdeeds, both real and imagined. And there are enough legitimate strategic and economic concerns about Chinese supply chain dominance to justify the White House’s move to gain leverage over Beijing by exploiting its need for foreign investment and technology – and to push forward potentially costly and/or politically difficult measures it already wanted to introduce.
Nothing Free
The problem for the U.S., though, is the same one it’s faced for the past three years: It’s really difficult to disentangle its economy from the Chinese without doing more harm than good, and the bulk of U.S. firms in China just don’t want to leave.
To be sure, for companies that were already wary of issues like rising labor and land costs, risks of intellectual property theft, and government coercion, the fact that Beijing’s micromanagerial and censorial tendencies contributed directly to a disruption in their operations might just be the straw that broke the camel’s back. But for most, when they crunch the numbers, it becomes clear that “the next China” will still be China for years to come. According to an AmCham China survey of U.S. firms in China about the effects of the COVID-19 crisis conducted in March – before China’s success in containing the virus and getting factories up and running was apparent – just four percent said they are actively considering moving some or all of their operations abroad. (Some 55 percent said it’s too soon to tell.)
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There are several reasons for their reluctance, but three stand out. First, in manufacturing sectors considered essential or key to national security, there’s nowhere else with China’s combination of skilled labor, well-oiled infrastructure, ability to move entire towns around to meet the land and logistics needs of major firms, the degree of innovation that comes from industrial clustering and tight-knit supplier networks, and invaluable proximity to other high-value ecosystems in East Asia. It’s not uncommon for major U.S. manufacturers to demand not only tax incentives from Chinese provincial governments but land and purpose-built infrastructure as well – and for authorities to deliver with astonishing speed. Firms have been moving bits and pieces of operations to South and Southeast Asia, plus assembly hubs in Latin America and Eastern Europe that provide easy access to dominant consumer markets. But even the most attractive of these locations – Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Mexico, India, Ethiopia – lack the skilled labor pools and/or infrastructure and regulatory environment to compete with China at scale. And each are grappling with chronic problems – natural disasters, organized crime, terrorism, labor unrest, meddlesome governments – sometimes at levels worse than in China. None are immune to epidemics.
Second, China’s consumer base is simply irresistible. Companies will put up with plenty of market barriers and government coercion just to tap into it. It’s an overlooked fact that, in combination with Hong Kong, Chinese imports now nearly match those of the U.S. The number of automobiles GM sold in China fell 15 percent last year and still surpassed U.S. sales by more than 200,000. U.S. firms like Qualcomm at the center of the U.S.-China tech war rely heavily on the revenues they gain from China to fund R&D and thus, somewhat paradoxically, maintain their innovation edge over their Chinese competitors. The best way to ensure access to this market is to put up with the headaches of manufacturing in China. This is why most companies actively moving some operations abroad are doing so only partially – just enough to establish a “China plus one” supply chain model with parallel links that builds redundancy and ensures access to both the U.S. and Chinese markets.
Finally, moving is expensive and time-consuming. This is a problem now more than ever, with companies suddenly starved for cash amid the fallout of the pandemic. All told, relocation is generally a three- to five-year process, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. Companies will be loath to take on the costs of moving unless it becomes clear exactly how the current surge in U.S.-China trade tensions will shake out – especially considering the possibility that U.S. tariffs might follow them to other destinations.
There’s not a lot the U.S. can do about these issues – and none of its options are cost-free. It can (and may) raise tariffs again on imports from China, but tariffs are a largely ineffective tool of coercion and a tax borne primarily by U.S. businesses and consumers, which is a bad idea at the height of an economic crash. It can (and will) strengthen restrictions on imports of national security-sensitive goods, but doing so risks crippling U.S. firms and ceding market share to foreign competitors – especially if the definition of security risks is applied too broadly. Both of these, moreover, would almost certainly provoke Chinese retaliation and would thus make things more expensive. Washington can subsidize the costs of relocating outside of China, but to do this for everyone would cost the U.S. trillions of dollars and do nothing to address the potential loss of competitiveness of U.S. firms that follow suit.
The U.S. has every reason to want to pry itself apart from the Chinese economy – in key sectors such as pharmaceuticals and sensitive emerging technologies, it’s inevitable – but there’s no reason to think Washington can do it quickly, cheaply or efficiently. It will struggle to strike an optimal balance that preserves national security without undermining its own ability to innovate and compete in global markets. And it will be impossible to achieve all of its oft-conflicting political, economic, security and strategic goals.
TAGSChinacoronavirusEconomyTradeUnited States
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Phillip Orchard
Phillip Orchard
https://geopoliticalfutures.com/author/porchard/
Phillip Orchard is an analyst at Geopolitical Futures. Prior to joining the company, Mr. Orchard spent nearly six years at Stratfor, working as an editor and writing about East Asian geopolitics. He’s spent more than six years abroad, primarily in Southeast Asia and Latin America, where he’s had formative, immersive experiences with the problems arising from mass political upheaval, civil conflict and human migration. Mr. Orchard holds a master’s degree in Security, Law and Diplomacy from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, where he focused on energy and national security, Chinese foreign policy, intelligence analysis, and institutional pathologies. He also earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Texas. He speaks Spanish and some Thai and Lao.
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https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Science/Key-piece-in-the-Wuhan-puzzle-China-s-bat-woman-goes-dark
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https://www.meforum.org/60504/israel-and-the-great-powers-view-from-beijing?utm_source=Middle+East+Forum&utm_campaign=e05390e766-MEQ_Jin_2020_05_21_09_25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_086cfd423c-e05390e766-33691909&goal=0_086cfd423c-e05390e766-33691909&mc_cid=e05390e766
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The People’s Republic of Queensland
The dubious conduct of an Australian university with Chinese ties shows the CCP’s long reach abroad.
By Walter Russell Mead
May 20, 2020 7:03 pm ET
The University of Queensland is what Australians call a “sandstone university,” something like the American Ivy League in prestige. Queensland consistently appears on lists of the world’s 100 best universities and is widely seen as one of the top three in Australia.
Lately, however, its cozy relationship with China has ignited a firestorm. Questions have been asked in Australia’s Parliament, and stories in the country’s leading newspapers and on its public television network have raked administrators over the coals. A Journal news story offers an overview of the scandal.
Queensland’s purgatory began last July during a peaceful student demonstration in support of Hong Kongers protesting for democracy and in solidarity with persecuted Uighurs in Xinjiang. The demonstrators were set upon by what observers said was a well-organized group of about 300 students and nonstudents, many shouting slogans in Chinese. As some filmed the rally, counterdemonstrators snatched megaphones from the pro-Hong Kong and pro-Uighur protesters and sought to break up the rally. Punches were thrown.
Xu Jie, China’s consul general in Brisbane, commended the counter-demonstrators for their “acts of patriotism,” while blaming the pro-Hong Kong students for “igniting anger and sparking protests from Chinese students.” In a highly unusual step, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne warned all foreign diplomats in Australia to respect the rights of free speech and peaceful protest. Amid all this, the press reported that Mr. Xu had recently been appointed an adjunct professor at the university.
About a week later, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Chinese officials had visited the mother of one of the students at the demonstration—she lives in China—and that she then told her son that his safety could only be guaranteed if he stopped his “anti-China rhetoric” and stayed away from other protests.
The story gets worse. In October one student who led the Hong Kong/Xinjiang demonstration sought a court order against Mr. Xu, alleging that the consul-general’s rhetoric was endangering his life. The student, 20-year-old Drew Pavlou, ran successfully to become the student representative on the university senate to gain greater visibility for his China protests. He carried on a program of activism including stunts like posting a “Covid-19 Biohazard” warning in front of the university’s Confucius Institute—the local branch of a Beijing-funded “soft power” program offering courses in Chinese language and culture. Concerned about the institutes’ tight links with the Chinese government, U.S. legislators banned universities who host Confucius Institutes from receiving federal language-training funds in 2019. Even before then, many U.S. schools severed their links with the program over the same worries.
But keeping Beijing happy is essential to the Queensland business model, and hosting a Confucius Institute is part of the package. Roughly 20% of the university’s students last fall were from China, and international students pay much higher tuition than Australians. Peter Høj, Queensland’s vice chancellor, had received a performance bonus of roughly US$130,000 in part because of his success in strengthening the university’s relations with China in ways that supported student recruitment.
Mr. Høj was committed. He not only allowed a Confucius Institute to be established on campus; he served for several years as an unpaid consultant to the Confucius Institute’s international board. At least one course jointly funded by the institute and Queensland highlighted China’s emerging world leadership in, among other topics, counterterrorism, human rights and the prevention of mass atrocities.
It was apparently intolerable that a student insulted an institution so august. The university compiled a 186-page dossier of Mr. Pavlou’s alleged misdoings, and summoned him to a hearing at which he faces possible expulsion. The charges, according to those who’ve seen the confidential document, either try to make trivial comments by Mr. Pavlou look sinister or attempt to infringe on his right to peaceful protest.
On Wednesday, Mr. Pavlou and his lawyer walked out of the disciplinary hearing, claiming the university was failing to follow its own procedures. The university denied these charges in a statement to the press.
Queensland’s investigative zeal is embarrassingly selective. Administrators don’t seem to have spent much time, if any, investigating the students who disrupted the protest last July. Was there a link between the Confucius Institute or the Chinese Consulate and the organized group that broke up a peaceful protest? How did the Chinese police know to visit a Queensland student’s family? Is there a Chinese effort to monitor and intimidate Chinese students abroad? Do Queensland students critical of Beijing face additional threats? That it somehow seemed more important to comb through Mr. Pavlou’s social-media posts than to devote major resources to questions like these is the measure of how badly the administration has lost its way.
The university has stoutly denied wrongdoing at every point. It asserts that the relationship with the Chinese Consulate and the Confucius Institute is entirely proper, that Mr. Pavlou’s disciplinary case has nothing to do with free speech, and that the information about Mr. Høj’s bonus released in the Australian Senate was partial and misleading. As Queensland chancellor Peter Varghese—a distinguished public servant with impeccable credentials in the Australian security establishment—summarizes the university’s position: “Boycotting China is not a sensible option. What we need is clear-eyed engagement which serves our interests and is faithful to our values.”
Mr. Varghese isn’t wrong about that, and Queensland isn’t wrong to want Chinese students. The value of having them on campus goes well beyond money. They bring different and challenging perspectives that other students need to encounter.
But the lesson for U.S. college presidents and trustees should be clear: The moral and reputational damage of mishandling a relationship with China can be ruinous. Open debate about topics like Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang and Tibet shouldn’t be suppressed simply because a foreign government objects. And if any students are to be expelled for violations of university standards, it shouldn’t be peaceful protesters, but conscious agents of a foreign police state who abuse their university status to snoop on their peers.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/china-moves-to-control-hong-kong-beijing-geopolitical-hardball-could-reshape-asia/#slide-1
Beijing Moves to Control Hong Kong
By MICHAEL AUSLIN
May 22, 2020 6:36 PM
The PRC's geopolitical hardball could reshape Asia.
Under cover of the global coronavirus crisis, China is moving to rewrite Asia’s geopolitical map. Beijing has announced it will essentially take control of Hong Kong by directly imposing a sweeping national-security law, bypassing the territory’s elected Legislative Council. Despite repeated assurances by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that it would abide by the 1984 agreement with Great Britain to allow Hong Kong to maintain a loose independence under the so-called “one-country, two-systems” framework for 50 years after the 1997 turnover, the past decade has seen a steady erosion of Hong Kong’s freedoms, culminating in the massive million-person-plus demonstrations throughout 2019. Now, those last freedoms face extinction.
The new national-security law will criminalize “foreign interference,” secession activities, and subversion of state power. Moreover, the CCP appears ready to alter Hong Kong’s Basic Law, essentially its constitution. Moreover, China’s security services will be able to operate openly in Hong Kong, further reducing Hong Kong’s sovereignty.
Only 23 years have passed since Great Britain handed over the colony to Beijing, and in that time, Hong Kong’s importance as a financial hub has lessened as Shanghai and other mainland financial centers developed. Yet Hong Kong always remained a symbol of relative freedom within China’s Communist system, and as the CCP has steadily clawed back power inside China since the accession to power of General Secretary Xi Jinping, Hong Kong’s status increasingly became irreconcilable with trends on the mainland. The CCP pushed electoral reforms by Hong Kong’s Legislative Council that ensured the election of pro-Beijing candidates, interfered with the courts and press, and steadily increased the mainland’s influence over society.
When Chief Executive Carrie Lam last year proposed an extradition bill that would have allowed the rendering of Hong Kong citizens to the mainland, the dormant democracy protests flared up, consuming the territory’s political and social life for much of the year. Lam was forced to withdraw the bill, but Beijing bided its time until the protests died down, even as the fundamental questions about Hong Kong’s future remained unanswered. Fearing the return of massive protests against Beijing’s increasing influence on the island once the coronavirus crisis has passed, the CCP has decided in essence to abrogate the remainder of Hong Kong’s freedoms with the imposition of the national-security bill.
The proposed national-security bill not only reveals that the CCP cannot be trusted to honor its international agreements. The bigger story is Mr. Xi’s willingness to aggressively move against any potential separatist movements, regardless of international law or morality. Beijing’s move to take over Hong Kong cannot be separated from its stamping out of Chinese civil society, as well as its brutal crackdowns in Xinjiang and Tibet.
Even more ominous is the specter that this throws on Taiwan. The democratic island nation just inaugurated President Tsai Ing-wen for a second term, and Tsai’s steadfast rejection of Beijing’s attempts to force Taiwan into a similar one country-two systems model has made her a target of CCP invective and intimidation.
It is clear that a successful move by Beijing on Hong Kong would cast a long shadow on Taiwan. China cannot simply intervene in Taiwan, a nation of 23 million people separated from the mainland by a body of water. Beijing does not have PLA units based in Taiwan, the way it does in Hong Kong. However, as the CCP shows its willingness to bear international condemnation for subordinating Hong Kong, and its willingness to do so during a global crisis, the message to Taiwan is clear. The old restrictions that Beijing put on its behavior towards Taiwan may no longer hold. How that ultimately plays out is unknown, not least in China itself, but by reordering the geopolitical landscape in Asia through essentially absorbing Hong Kong, Beijing opens up greater possibilities for action.
The CCP’s move on Hong Kong, and its increased threat to Taiwan, will be bolstered by a weak international response. Fear of provoking Beijing’s wrath, on display from its “wolf warrior diplomats” and recent intimidation of the European Union and Australia, will lead some to consider this a merely internal Chinese affair. That is precisely the outcome Beijing wants, leaving Hong Kong and Taiwan isolated, and giving China a free hand to shape its near abroad to its liking, regardless of the wishes of the over 30 million Taiwanese and Hong Kongers.
The United States must lead the moral and political opposition to this naked power grab by Beijing. Perhaps fortuitously, the White House has just released a “Strategic Approach to the People’s Republic of China,” warning that Beijing “challenges the bedrock American belief in the unalienable right of every person to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Taking over Hong Kong in direct defiance of the desires of Hong Kong’s citizens proves the validity of this assertion.
While Washington’s direct options are limited, China should be forced to veto a UN Security Council resolution condemning its abrogation of Hong Kong’s Basic Law. Travel bans on high-ranking CCP officials and military officers should also be considered, especially if violence is used against any new demonstrations, as should further sanctions on technology transfer to China. Finally, once the law is passed by Beijing, Washington should offer immediate asylum to Hong Kong’s democratic leaders, as well as to prominent academics, business leaders, artists, and the like, who will be most at risk.
7
Restricting engagement with China and offering America as a haven for Hong Kongers are small steps, but ones that will send a message of hope to those who are resisting Beijing’s attempts to redraw Asia’s map.
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/top-european-union-diplomat-calls-china-an-ally-despite-hong-kong-crisis
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/beyond-hong-kong-an-emboldened-xi-jinping-pushes-the-boundaries-11590774190?mod=itp_wsj&mod=&mod=djemITP_h
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http://www.indiandefensenews.in/2020/05/swapping-of-military-islands-between.html (http://www.indiandefensenews.in/2020/05/swapping-of-military-islands-between.html)
SWAPPING OF MILITARY ISLANDS BETWEEN INDIA AND AUSTRALIA TO COUNTER CHINA’S AGGRESSION
SATURDAY, MAY 30, 2020 BY INDIAN DEFENCE NEWS
by Saket Singh
Full Content Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison could sign a much-awaited maritime defence pact between the two nations in an upcoming virtual summit scheduled on June 4, 2020. Once signed it will allow the militaries of India and Australia to access each other military islands i.e. India’s Andaman & Nicobar island and Australia’s Cocos island. The Mutual Logistics Support Agreement (MLSP) pact was expected to be signed during the Australian Prime Minister visit to India, but the visit was called off due to bush fires in Australia. India has signed a similar pact with countries like the US, Singapore, France, and South Korea which allow each other to use their bases for logistics support.
Both countries are witnessing China’s aggression whether it may be the South China Sea (SCS) or the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). Two months back about 12 Chinese underwater drones were caught in the IOR. Interestingly, Australia was the first country that wished to have a probe on the COVID-19 pandemic. This turned the Chinese upside down and the its state-run media mouthpiece of CCP started demanding economic sanctions on Australia. India’s Andaman & Nicobar island is strategically an important asset and its close to the straits of Malacca while Australia’s Cocos island is close to the Indonesian straits of Sunda, Lombak, and Ombai-Wetar. The straits of Malacca is very narrow and is the single entry and exit point for India to access the Pacific region and vice-versa for Australia to access the IOR. The presence of China is increasing in the SCS and if they try to block the Malacca straits there will be an option left for India and Australia to counter that. Cocos (Kelling) island is an Australian external territory in the IOR, comprising of the small archipelago midway between two island nations: Australia and Sri Lanka and closer to the Indonesian straits.
Impact of This Pact
Experts believe once the agreement signed it will provide India an eye to monitor between the Andaman & Nicobar island in the north to the Cocos island in the south. The agreement will also vast our search domain in sea communication. The choke-points Sunda and Lombak which lies in the Indonesian straits are the viable Sea Lines of Communication (SLOC) which remain outside the Indian domain. But mutual use of Cocos island will allow the Indian side to have access to this important SLOC. Similarly, the Australian side will have access to use the straits of Malacca to monitor the Chinese presence in SCS. The Chinese military is building the infrastructure in the SCS which likely to create unbalance in the region and it can also hinder sea security. Straits of Malacca, Sunda, and Lombak is an important route for transportation of crude oil and petroleum products. From the point of strategically and economically, both India and Australia don’t want China to have upper-hand in these regions
Way Forward
Both countries are part of Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD) or QUAD a group formed to counter China aggression in the Indo-Pacific region. The Australian acknowledges the importance of IOR and expresses that it has a vital interest in the security of the sea lanes.
Andaman & Nicobar island and Cocos island are used for surveillance purposes by the militaries of India and Australia. The joint effort would help New Delhi and Canberra to explore their domain in monitoring and tracking hostile submarines, ships, and drones. The agreement will further enable smooth functioning and help to strengthen each other militaries in the region.
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Very interesting development!!!
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https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3087229/britain-lobbies-five-eyes-allies-share-burden-possible-hong
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https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3087866/coronavirus-pandemic-shows-global-consequences-chinas-local
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/08/satellite-images-packed-wuhan-hospitals-suggest-coronavirus/
Satellite images of packed Wuhan hospitals suggest coronavirus outbreak began earlier than thought
Harvard Medical School study comparing hospital car parks in 2019 to 2018 finds spike in October
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China lied, people died, and the world suffered the worst economic lockdown in history.
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https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-disappeared?utm_source=pocket-newtab
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June 10, 2020 View On Website
Open as PDF
China Threatens Australia Because That’s All It Can Do
Beijing has a lot of leverage over countries that rely on it for trade, but it’s hard to translate that into anything more meaningful.
By: Phillip Orchard
As cases of COVID-19 resurge elsewhere in the world, it’s worth remembering that Australia whipped the coronavirus into submission with relative ease, reducing the number of new daily cases to single digits by mid-April. Yet, the pandemic has left Australia with an acute case of economic and diplomatic whiplash anyway, not because of its public health shortcomings but because of its uneasy codependence with China.
The country’s astonishing 29-year run of economic growth is set to come to an abrupt end, thanks in part to flagging demand from China, whose soaring commodities purchases helped keep Australia out of a recession after 2008. And Beijing, upset with Canberra over (among other seemingly trivial matters) its pro forma support for an international investigation into the origins of the virus and Taiwanese membership in the World Health Organization, is going the extra mile to ensure Australia doesn’t take Chinese buyers for granted. Over the past month, China has halted shipments of Australian beef, imposed an 80 percent tariff on Australian barley, warned of consumer boycotts targeting Australian winemakers and dairy farmers, and urged the more than 200,000 Chinese university students in Australia to consider studying elsewhere.
Beijing, in other words, is becoming less and less subtle about its capacity for coercion. And Australia – at once dependent on the Chinese economy, strategically located on the periphery of what China sees as its natural sphere of influence, tightly allied militarily with the superpower China sees as hellbent on halting its rise, and yet wary of the U.S.’ own turn away from its multilateral international architecture – is a tempting place to make the case that regional powers are better off with Beijing.
But China’s recent actions suggest that it’s under no illusion that Australia’s loyalties can be won, nor that a strategic rivalry can be avoided.
Chinese Leverage
The Australian government has grown increasingly uneasy with its dependence on Chinese money – and thus Beijing’s ability to turn Australian states and business communities against Canberra – for years. Australia, for example, became the first member of the Five Eyes intel-sharing alliance to ban Chinese firms such as Huawei from its 5G buildout, leading to tacit Chinese restrictions of imports of Australian coal and wine. Concerns over large-scale Chinese purchases of Australian land and investment in Australian infrastructure, particularly near sensitive military and intelligence facilities, compelled Canberra to override state governments and block certain foreign investments. In 2018, the Victoria state government defied Canberra by signing onto Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. A series of high-profile corruption and disinformation operations scandals that allegedly exposed widespread Chinese influence over Australian politics, media and academia sparked something of a red scare and prompted the government to restrict foreign political donations. These concerns, in fact, include the entire region, with the government launching a host of initiatives to counter Chinese influence in South Pacific island nations.
Two things are striking about this trend. One is just how much leverage Beijing has over Canberra. The Australian economy is indeed beholden to Chinese buyers and investors. More than 38 percent of Australian exports of goods in 2019 went to the Middle Kingdom. This included some $55 billion of iron ore, natural gas and coal and $8 billion in agriculture products. Chinese investors, meanwhile, sunk more than $44 billion into a range of sectors from mining to agriculture to infrastructure. (Inbound Chinese investment was estimated to have dropped by more than half last year as bilateral tensions rose.) There were nearly twice as many tourists from China than any other country (except New Zealand) in 2018; they spent more than $8 billion.
Nearly one in 10 university students in Australia is now Chinese, generating another $8 billion in tuition and fees each year. Australia’s highly decentralized power structure – in which states and independent senators wield immense power over legislation, leading to legislative gridlock, strategic paralysis and strikingly frequent changes in leadership – opens up countless avenues of influence to foreign powers.
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Second is how quick China has been to threaten Australia, putting Beijing at risk of exhausting its leverage and triggering political blowback for marginal gains at most. Australia has relatively few ways it can truly threaten China. The main one – its longtime military alliance with the U.S. and budding partnerships with regional powers like Japan and India – only matters if China makes a push to dominate the South Pacific, which China is still decades away from attempting. Indeed, while Australia would play an instrumental role in “the Quad,” Canberra has been reluctant to do anything that deepens Beijing’s perception that the coalition is intended to blunt China’s rise. This reflects both its desire to keep bilateral relations focused on mutual commercial gain and its view that the Chinese navy does not pose an imminent threat.
The other issues in Australia that have provoked Chinese retaliation realistically only threaten China’s international reputation.
Its souring image abroad is a real diplomatic problem for China with real economic and strategic costs. But to address them by becoming more overtly coercive would seem counterproductive, particularly in a place already primed to see Chinese money as increasingly threatening to Australian sovereignty.
How to Buy Friends and Alienate People
China’s reactions can therefore be explained, in part, by its internal political sensitivity. To Beijing, calling for an investigation into the origins of the pandemic is the same as calling for a probe into all the ways the ruling party’s rigidly centralized, censorship-obsessed model of governance contributed to the massive loss of life and livelihoods at home. This is still an existential threat to the Communist Party’s hold on power.
It can also be explained by the fact that Beijing realizes that Australia won’t abandon the U.S. – that the only future in which Australia “chooses” China is one in which Australia doesn’t really have a choice. To be sure, throughout its history, Australia has periodically seen times of fierce debate on whether to decrease its reliance on U.S. security guarantees – thereby limiting its exposure to policy swings in Washington – and deepen military integration with emerging Asian powers (first Japan and now China). Still, Canberra has remained perhaps the U.S.’ most steadfast ally – even routinely sending Australian troops to take part in U.S.-led conflicts of marginal Australian interest to ensure that the alliance remains robust. This is partly the result of Australia’s view of itself as a Western power, with deep cultural affinities and historical ties to the U.S. that would make it politically difficult to break away. It’s also because Australia’s economy has always lived and died by free and open sea lanes – that is, Australian strategy has always been tied to the dominant global maritime power of the day. Before the U.S., it was the British. China wants to dominate the Western Pacific, but it has little appetite for the responsibilities that come with the global role, and will not have the capability to do so anytime soon.
(click to enlarge)
To pull Australia firmly into its orbit, Beijing would have to overcome a combination of strategic imperatives and political forces tying Australia to the U.S. It’s a tall order. There’s not much China can do about this short of abandoning its strategic ambitions, overhauling its internal authoritarian system, waging a decadeslong effort to shed its newfound reputation of political interference and debt-trap diplomacy, and hoping the U.S. loses interest in the region. Its material and strategic needs are too immense, and its domestic sensitivities too acute, to put much hope in a strategy focused on winning friends through charm and mutual interest. This is a fundamental challenge for China across the Indo-Pacific and beyond. What Beijing evidently can do, though, is make countries think twice before opposing it, whether on matters big or small, international reputation be damned.
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A Major Cyberattack Further Stokes Australia-China Tensions
3 MINS READ
Jun 19, 2020 | 18:29 GMT
Amid a recent uptick in Sino-Australian tensions, China is continuing to raise the price of Australia's confrontational diplomatic stance, including Canberra's sustained support of a U.S.-led international push to investigate Beijing's role in the COVID-19 pandemic. On June 19, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that his country had been targeted by a sustained and wide-ranging cyberattack on government institutions, public services and businesses. Unnamed top officials said the Chinese government is the primary suspect.
The Australian Cyber Security Centre said the June 19 cyberattack was relatively simple and preventable with routine security measures, but that the wide-ranging and sustained nature of the attack suggested a state actor.
Leaks indicate that Australian intelligence offices concluded in March that China's Ministry of State Security was also responsible for a February 2019 cyberattack on Australia's parliament and top political parties ahead of key May elections.
Former Australian officials said that they believed the cyberattacks are part of a broader Chinese cyber campaign that began following Australia's 2018 decision to ban Huawei from its 5G networks.
Australia, however, has shown no signs that it intends to back off from its confrontational stance, despite China's continued economic threats and retaliatory actions in recent months. On June 11, Morrison said his government would not be intimidated by Beijing's "coercion" tactics, signaling his political resolve to maintain Australia's current scrutiny of Beijing's involvement in the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as Hong Kong's political crisis.
In late April, Australia and other U.S. allies began pushing for an international investigation against China over the origins and handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. On May 29, Australia also signed a joint statement opposing Beijing's controversial move to impose a new national security law in Hong Kong.
On May 10, Beijing imposed heavy tariffs on Australia's barley exports, essentially halting 11 percent of the country's agricultural exports to China. China has also warned of consumer boycotts of Australian wine and beef, and has threatened to halt some imports from key Australian slaughterhouses citing compliance issues. Several Chinese power plants have reportedly stopped importing Australian coal as well.
On June 9, China's Ministry of Education issued an official warning to Chinese students to beware of discrimination in Australia. This followed a similar June 6 warning to Chinese tourists.
On June 16, Chinese courts issued a death penalty sentence for an Australian national arrested for drug smuggling in 2013.
To limit China's economic leverage going forward, Australia will continue to try to diversify its economic links beyond China, although it has limited options. Morrison also recently announced plans to diversify Australia's economic relationship by forging commercial ties with its fellow members of the "Five Eyes" intelligence alliance, which include Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Despite Beijing's continued economic threats and retaliatory actions, Australia shows no sign of backing down from its sustained public scrutiny of China's international affairs.
But Australia's continued scrutiny of China's international affairs will leave its political and economic institutions vulnerable to future cyberattacks. While it seems there was no immediate trigger for this attack, the mounting crises along China's periphery, including that with India and in Hong Kong, could be compelling Beijing to respond in the hopes of forcing U.S. allies to back off on their pressure campaign. And cyberattacks offer a low-cost, low-risk way to achieve that end without causing sparking a larger crisis and leave room for some plausible de
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China's Wolf-Warrior Culture...
https://www.readingthechinadream.com/xiang-lanxin-on-wolf-warrior-diplomacy.html (https://www.readingthechinadream.com/xiang-lanxin-on-wolf-warrior-diplomacy.html)
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Good read.
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The Meaning of Hong Kong
China snuffs out a beacon of freedom, a warning to the world.
By The Editorial Board
July 1, 2020 7:18 pm ET
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Protesters making gestures of 1 and 5 fingers, symbolising the five demands of the protest movement during the demonstration in Hong Kong, July 1.
PHOTO: WILLIE SIAWILLIE SIAU/ZUMA PRESS
China’s decision to impose its national-security law on Hong Kong is a seismic event that goes well beyond the sad fate of its 7.5 million people. The illegal takeover shows that Beijing’s Communist rulers are willing to violate their international commitments with impunity as they spread their authoritarian model.
We say this with regret because we were among those who hoped, amid China’s reform era that began in the 1980s, that the Middle Kingdom could be drawn into a world of peaceful global norms. Hong Kong, a showcase of the prosperity that economic freedom and the rule of law can produce, was a lesson for Beijing to learn from.
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Now those hopes are crushed, as China’s Communist legislature imposed the national-security law that ends Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” governance and subverts the rights promised under the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984. Beijing promised to preserve Hong Kong’s legal autonomy and freedom of speech, assembly, the press and other liberties. The 7.5 million now subject to this sweeping legislation weren’t even permitted to read the text until it passed.
In a statement Tuesday, Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam claimed that the national-security law “only targets an extremely small minority of offenders while the life and property as well as various legitimate basic rights and freedoms enjoyed by the overwhelming majority of citizens will be protected.”
The Hong Kong people clearly don’t believe her because thousands took to the streets Wednesday to protest, despite the personal risks under the new law. More than 300 were arrested, including several under the new security law.
The legislation also outlaws secessionism, subversion, “terrorist activities” and “collusion” with foreign forces, all defined so broadly that nearly anything but unconditional obedience to Beijing may be deemed illegal. It also forbids “provoking by unlawful means hatred among Hong Kong residents towards the Central People’s Government or the Government of the Region, which is likely to cause serious consequences.” The maximum punishment is life in prison.
The obvious targets include prominent figures like democracy advocates Martin Lee, Joshua Wong and Nathan Law, and publisher Jimmy Lai. But Beijing also makes clear that anyone who participates in protests or otherwise speaks out against the Communist Party could face charges. A Hong Konger who advocates for democracy at a U.S. university or meets with Members of Congress runs the risk of arrest upon return.
The law also allows authorities to go after foreigners, including for speech or activities that take place outside Hong Kong. Journalists, human-rights activists and businessmen now visit or work in the city at their peril.
The law doesn’t explicitly say if the accused can be extradited to the mainland. But that is meaningless since the measure effectively brings mainland justice to Hong Kong. Security forces who answer to Beijing will collect intelligence and surveil suspects. Beijing chooses which judges can hear national-security cases and claims exclusive authority to interpret the new law.
All of this is also ominous for Taiwan, whose free people will be even less likely to trust Beijing’s assurances after watching Hong Kong’s fate. Taiwan’s foreign minister condemned the new security law, and some of Hong Kong's people may seek refuge on the island. A Beijing mouthpiece warned about a Taiwanese “black hand” in Hong Kong affairs, and a Chinese military intervention can’t be ruled out.
The British, to their credit, have responded to all of this by offering some three million Hong Kongers the right to reside in the U.K. on a path to citizenship. The U.S. should do the same, and bipartisan bills in Congress are moving to offer refugee status to some Hong Kongers. President Trump should welcome these talented freedom lovers with open arms in what promises to be a long competition between democracy and Chinese Communism.
For now, however, a beacon of freedom has been extinguished, and the world should learn that it can’t trust Beijing’s promises.
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China’s Rise as a Global Power Reaches Its Riskiest Point Yet
Rodger Baker
Rodger Baker
Senior VP of Strategic Analysis, Stratfor
8 MINS READ
Jul 3, 2020 | 10:00 GMT
A map of China.
A map of China.
(Shutterstock.com/KPG Ivary)
HIGHLIGHTS
China has reached a risky point in its international development where its economic and strategic power is perceived as great enough to require a reply, but are not yet strong enough to withstand a concerted counter-challenge.
By default and design, Beijing can no longer rely on its former admonition to bide time and will act with haste and intensity to close the gap with other global powers.
China will continue to rely on a policy of division, exploiting the rifts in the framework of the liberal Western world order to delay any collective action that may expose its weakness or force a stumble in its stride.
China is an empire in the modern sense — a nation strengthened (but also held hostage) by its long supply chains, compelled to ever greater economic and political intercourse to preserve its interests, and increasingly drawn into the security sphere as well. It uses its economic, political and military leverage to expand its own direct sphere of operations, from the South China Sea to India and across Central Asia into Europe. The more engaged it is internationally, the more dependent it is on maintaining and strengthening those connections, which are critical for Chinese economic growth and, by extension, domestic management of its massive, diverse and economically unequal population.
Revisiting Japan's Rise
Perhaps the most dangerous time for a rising power is when it is strong enough to feel confident and arouse suspicion from rivals, but not yet powerful enough to ensure its intended new position in the face of resistance. A dual sense of destiny and insecurity can lead to higher levels of risk tolerance, a greater sense of urgency, and at times, self-fulfilling prophecies of international confrontation.
Japan's imperial rise from the late 1800s through World War II is a prime example. An advancing industrial power in an era of empires, Japan was emboldened by its successes in the Sino-Japanese War in the last decade of the 19th century and the Russo-Japanese War in the first decade of the 20th century. Japan's expectation of being accepted as an equal among the leading empires and nations of the time was dashed by post-World War I settlements, and a begrudged and insecure Tokyo that ultimately launched a major military vitalization to press outward and claim leadership within the Asia-Pacific region.
As Japan's power grew and its imperial ambitions were laid bare, it triggered an economic and political response from the United States and other large powers, with Washington ultimately cutting off supplies of vital commodities to the expanding Japanese empire. The U.S. ability to stifle the Japanese economy, and in particular its war efforts in China, was an existential threat to Japanese strategic interests, and Japan was too committed to its imperial program to withdraw and accept constraint. Despite the recognized risk of losing, Japan chose and committed to a military course against the United States, accepting the risk of war over the reality of economic and political strangulation.
A Modern-Day Empire in the Making
China, however, is not Imperial Japan. And today's world is not a world of empires, where conquering neighbors was a common practice of international relations. But China does sit at a moment in history that is loosely analogous to that of a rising Japan. Over the last half-century, China has moved rapidly from a developing nation to a country with increasing technological competence and competitiveness that hosts the world's second-largest economy, as well as one of the world's largest modern militaries. Under the guidance of President Xi Jinping, who took office in 2013, Chinese society has also pulled closer together around a new nationalism that lays claim to the country's 5000-year history and the righteous indignation of its so-called "century of humiliation" at the hands of Western and Japanese imperialism.
The challenge for China, however, is that international fears of "China's rise" are no longer being ignored or subsumed in debates over globalization versus nationalism. The relative power balance with the United States is no longer one Washington can simply hope away. And even the European Union, the vanguard of globalism, is increasingly concerned by China's economic and regulatory reach, and is taking steps to curtail Chinese investments in critical sectors.
China has reached a risky point in its international development where its economic and strategic power is perceived as great enough to require a reply, but are not yet strong enough to withstand a concerted counter-challenge.
Following the end of the Cold War, the United States policy toward China could be summed up in a single word: cajoling. While there were moments of extreme tension, the overall intent was to try to draw China into a North Atlantic-centered world system, based on democratic liberalism and free-market capitalism. Avoiding overt confrontation was a key part of this policy — and something China rapidly learned to exploit. Beijing's steady expansion in the South China Sea, for example, always moved in increments small enough that Washington would weigh the cost of response as too high.
During this time, China adapted to ideas and systems that fit its needs, but Beijing also reinforced its own system centered on state capitalism. The stronger China grew, the more confident it was in its system, and the more China has sought to alter the Western-centric international norms. If China was a major player in the global economy, and its economic development was largely on par with countries in the global south, why should it or other emerging countries still play by the rules set more than half a century ago by a small number of North Atlantic nations with a common heritage and an anti-Soviet agenda? China's economic success, and the apparent political, economic and social chaos in the United States and even Europe, appeared to bolster China's case with much of the world.
The Race to the Top
By boldly asserting its global role, China has moved beyond its former walk softly and bide time approach. Beijing, however, also knows it's not actually ready to support the role of a global leader, and any easing now may expose that weakness. China still needs time to complete its program of national rejuvenation and strengthening. But it is already facing constraints and restrictions on access to markets and technology, and is seeing a rise of military activity within its own near abroad.
The United States, in particular, has recognized that there is no longer a value in cajoling China. The other options are simply accepting that China will play a major role in rewriting the international order, or taking action to constrain the Chinese advance — and Washington has chosen the latter by returning to a coercive strategy.
The United States has stepped up its drive to break its dependence on China for technology supply chains, and is urging companies to leave China.
The U.S. Navy has also maintained a robust operational tempo along the Chinese periphery, and engaged in maritime exercises with several regional countries, including Japan and Australia, and paid a major port visit to Vietnam.
U.S. moves to cut China off from international semiconductor supply chains to limit investment and intellectual flows are clearly attempts to stifle Chinese development, and Beijing sees these as little less threatening than Japan saw U.S. restrictions of scrap steel and tropical resources. But if Beijing does not yet have the confidence or strength to use its military in a way comparable to the other big powers — namely, the United States, Russia and Europe — it still has a useful tool in its kit to counter rising international pressure.
China can, and actively does, work to exploit fissures in the international system, divisions among the North Atlantic nations, stresses in the U.S. alliance and partnership structure, and the perception of inequality between advanced and developing nations in international institutions. Should the West coordinate in their attempts to constrain and shape Chinese development, it would come at a time when China remains vulnerable. Beijing is moving faster to strengthen its position around its periphery, from Xinjiang and Hong Kong to the south and east China Seas and the Tibetan Plateau. It needs to accelerate its domestic technology drive, turbocharge domestic consumption, and lock in economic dependencies and political connections across Eurasia.
China is also cautiously eyeing the U.S. presidential election in November, concerned that a change in U.S. policy could lead to greater trans-Atlantic economic and political coordination, as well as increased trans-Pacific economic and security coordination against China. With the U.S. election only months away, China has a small window to simultaneously accelerate its own national security position and increase its efforts to exploit differing priorities before a potential change in U.S. leadership heals the current perception of a go-it-alone United States.
Over the next year, we thus can expect Beijing to be more aggressive in its near abroad when it comes to territory and military movement, and more conciliatory and cooperative in Europe, Africa and Asia when it comes to economics, investment and calls for globalization. These seemingly contradictory paths are, in fact, complementary — one secures the buffer space around China, the other keeps the world divided about how to manage China's emergence.
It is a difficult balance to maintain, and the pressure on Beijing, from domestic economic and demographic challenges to external military activity and economic levers, make this a risky moment in China's assertion of its global status. But while we are no longer in the era of traditional empires, and active warfare against one another is the anomaly rather than the norm for the largest powers, history shows us that such transitions are filled with uncertainty, urgency and higher risk tolerance — and Beijing's moment will prove no different.
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https://www.vice.com/en_asia/article/3azv88/china-thinks-it-can-arrest-basically-anyone-on-the-planet-for-criticizing-communism
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Asia-Pacific responds to the Hong Kong bill. A flurry of strategic defense discussions are underway in the Asia-Pacific as the fallout from China’s Hong Kong security bill continues. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that his country would offer additional visas and possible residency to students and workers from Hong Kong. He also said Australia’s extradition treaty with Hong Kong would be suspended and that Canberra would start actively recruiting companies seeking to leave Hong Kong. The Five Eyes intelligence-sharing group (Canada, the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand) have also been closely coordinating responses to the changes in Hong Kong. At the bilateral level, Morrison and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe discussed security issues in the South China Sea, the importance of the Quad security dialogue and strengthening their defense and security relationship. Vice defense ministers from South Korea and New Zealand also spoke of ways to increase security cooperation between the two countries. The common thread among all of these groups and bilateral relationships is the containment of China. Their approach to that end reflects Washington’s effort to offload more responsibilities onto regional partners.
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https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2020/07/13/has_chinas_rise_peaked_115460.html
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https://theprint.in/theprint-essential/the-china-iran-strategic-partnership-and-how-it-can-change-geopolitics-in-the-middle-east/460080/
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Pompeo is saying and doing all the right things.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-britain/u-s-wants-to-build-coalition-to-counter-chinas-disgraceful-menace-pompeo-says-idUSKCN24M0QD
U.S. wants to build coalition to counter China's 'disgraceful' menace, Pompeo says
LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday the United States wants to build a global coalition to counter China as he accused Beijing of exploiting the coronavirus pandemic to further its own interests.
U.S. President Donald Trump identifies China as the United States’ main rival, and has accused President Xi Jinping of taking advantage over trade and not telling the truth over the novel coronavirus outbreak, which Trump calls the “China plague”.
Pompeo, on a visit to London, lauded Prime Minister Boris Johnson for ordering a purge of Huawei gear from its 5G mobile phone network, saying it was the right decision as data could have ended up in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.
The secretary of state cast China as an aggressor, saying it had made illegal martime claims, bullied Himalayan countries, covered up the coronavirus outbreak and exploited it to further its own interests in a “disgraceful” way.
“We hope we can build out a coalition that understands the threat and will work collectively to convince the Chinese Communist Party that it is not in their best interest to engage in this kind of behaviour,” Pompeo told reporters alongside British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.
“We want to see every nation who understands freedom and democracy...to understand this threat that the Chinese Communist Party is posing to them.”
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The West Reckons With Beijing’s Neocommunism
It’s more tech-based than Lenin’s model and more dangerous. The U.S. needs to treat it seriously.
By Walter Russell Mead
July 22, 2020 11:25 am ET
China’s rise is more than a problem. It’s a puzzle. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, most Western analysts have assumed that China is a communist country in the way that France is a Catholic one. That is, there remain Marxist believers in China and practicing Catholics in France, but Beijing is as little guided by Marxist ideology as Emmanuel Macron is led by the precepts of Pius IX.
That turns out not to be true. While Xi Jinping likely spends little time reading Marx’s “Grundrisse” or debating the labor theory of value with his comrades, today’s China combines a Leninist party structure with state control (if not always ownership) of the means of production, a planned economy, an intolerant atheism and a ruthless determination to hold on to power at all costs. That Beijing incorporates market mechanisms into its communist system is not new; Lenin introduced the New Economic Policy in 1921 to speed recovery from the Russian Civil War. But the Chinese Communist Party—armed with information technology that lets it monitor and control economic activity on a scale Lenin could only dream of—has grafted market mechanisms onto a communist state structure with great success.
Call it neocommunism or digital Leninism—it’s real. And while the U.S. foreign-policy establishment was congratulating itself on the end of history, China grew into a more formidable world force than the Soviet Union ever was. As the Tibetans and Uighurs can tell us, the new system is as ruthless as old-style communism and, thanks to technology, far more effective at crushing dissent.
American policy responses to this puzzling entity will have to take account of the geopolitical, ideological and economic dimensions of the new China. None of this will be easy. It’s unclear, for example, how entrenched the country’s latest bout of authoritarianism actually is. Clearly, under Mr. Xi China has taken a wrong turn. But perhaps in the future, as a result of either foreign pressure or domestic developments, the party might move again toward reform, and a different U.S.-China relationship could unfold.
In any case, America’s goal even in a competitive relationship can’t be to stop China’s economic growth or dictate its political development. The country’s rise is a great moment in human history and the U.S. has no desire—and has no power—to prevent more than one billion people from working toward a better life. Sun Tzu’s observation that the greatest general wins without fighting is still relevant; the best way to win a conflict with Beijing is to avoid it.
Nevertheless, the U.S. relationship with a revisionist and possibly revolutionary neocommunist China can’t simply be business as usual. Countries like China—and Russia—that claim they are actively seeking to undermine U.S. interests and counter American values need to be taken at their word. U.S. diplomats and agents must respond to attempts to extend hostile influence in strategically important countries and proactively defend American interests.
The U.S. can’t treat trade as a purely economic question. In neocommunist China, distinctions between state-owned corporations and private business can no longer be taken at face value. Chinese businesses and investors are under Beijing’s thumb. Given the party’s ambitions, other countries have no choice but to monitor Chinese investment and financial flows, to audit their supply chains for key materials to eliminate any strategic dependence on China, and to eschew the use of Chinese tech that threatens their telecom and infrastructure security. China’s attempts to achieve technological supremacy through theft and illegal behavior pose direct security threats to other countries. These dangers must be addressed, even at significant political and economic cost.
Beijing’s steady military buildup—combined with its expansionist territorial claims and increased efforts to form partnerships with countries such as Russia and Iran—has major implications for the U.S. defense budget. America must scale up its efforts to ensure primacy on land, at sea, in the air, in cyberspace and in outer space sufficiently to deter any rivals.
And while repression is nothing new in China, the extraordinary measures the Communist Party uses against ethnic and religious minorities require an international response. There are many elements of Beijing’s governance that Americans don’t like, but we don’t insist that Chinese practice conform to our ways to have normal relations. The deliberate destruction of ethnic cultures and religious communities, however, crosses a line that the U.S. cannot ignore.
Developing the right policies for this new situation is a difficult but necessary task. Neocommunist China cannot be allowed to dictate the terms of its engagement with a global system that it seeks to destroy.
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Thanks for posting WRM. He is right.
One of my favorite Democrats, Mead is someone Biden should pick (for VP) if he was serious about the future of the republic instead of political. Zero chance of that.
Neocom is a good word for the Left here too, if we may borrow it.
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https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n15/adam-tooze/whose-century
London Review of Books
"The mistake in thinking that we are in a ‘new Cold War’ is in thinking of it as new. In putting a full stop after 1989 we prematurely declare a Western victory. From Beijing’s point of view, there was no end of history, but a continuity – not unbroken, needless to say, and requiring constant reinterpretation, as any live political tradition does, but a continuity nevertheless. Although American hawks have only a crude understanding of China’s ideology, on this particular matter they have grasped the right end of the stick. We have to take seriously the CCP’s sense of mission. We should not comfort ourselves with the thought that because nationalism is the main mode of Chinese politics today, Xi’s administration is nothing more than a nationalist regime. China under the control of the CCP is, indeed, involved in a gigantic and novel social and political experiment enrolling one-sixth of humanity, a historic project that dwarfs that of democratic capitalism in the North Atlantic." Mr. Tooze is the author of Crashed, arguably the best narrative history of the Great Financial Crisis yet published. (via lrb.uk.com, amazon.com, Financial Times)
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Mike Pompeo Urges Chinese People to Change Communist Party
Top U.S. diplomat urges allied countries, Chinese people to work with the U.S. to transform the party’s behavior
U.S. Shift in China Strategy: End ‘Blind Engagement’
By Kate O’Keeffe and William Mauldin
WASHINGTON—Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on the Chinese people to alter the ruling Communist Party’s direction in a speech explaining the Trump administration’s full-throttle response to an assertive China.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping is a “true believer in a bankrupt, totalitarian ideology,” Mr. Pompeo said. He stopped shy of explicitly calling for regime change, urging allied countries and the people of China to work with the U.S. to change the Communist Party’s behavior.
The Communist Party “fears the Chinese people’s honest opinions more than any foe,” Mr. Pompeo said in a speech at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, Calif. The U.S. “must also engage and empower the Chinese people,” he said.
The speech, called “Communist China and the Free World’s Future,” caps a series of addresses by senior officials in recent weeks focusing on what the Trump administration sees as the challenge posed by China and its expanding global reach. The uncompromising rhetoric has been accompanied by an uptick in administration pressure on Beijing—from sanctions to military exercises and indictments—as relations between the countries spiral downward to the lowest point in decades.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington didn’t respond to requests for comment. The Chinese foreign ministry has previously objected to what it said were Trump administration attempts to drive a wedge between the Chinese people and the party.
This week, the administration took the unprecedented move of ordering China to close its consulate in Houston by Friday afternoon, accusing it and other Chinese diplomatic missions of economic espionage and visa fraud.
Beijing retaliated early Friday by ordering the closing of the U.S. consulate in the southwestern city of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province. The foreign ministry called it a “legitimate and necessary response to the unreasonable behavior of the U.S.”
American diplomats had been anticipating the closure of one of the seven U.S. diplomatic missions in the country, and are making preparations in case that happens, according to people familiar with the matter.
The consulate closings have added a new front to a growing list of U.S.-China conflicts over trade, technology and global influence.
Mr. Pompeo, in an interview ahead of the speech, declined to discuss possible retaliation for the Houston consulate closure, saying any such step would be up to Beijing. He portrayed the U.S. move as necessary for national security and the prevention of intellectual property theft from sensitive energy and health-care businesses in the Houston area.
“We are now decades into America not responding to Chinese aggression,” he said, describing U.S. policy as an effort to restore balance to a relationship the administration sees as unfairly tilted toward Beijing.
Mr. Pompeo criticized Beijing for restricting U.S. diplomats in China and preventing them from meeting with members of the legislature and others. “This is the kind of absence of reciprocity that President Trump simply has said is unacceptable,” he said.
The administration’s heightened focus on Beijing dovetails with a tough-on-China message in Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign, similar to the one in his 2016 bid.
As president, while his administration has moved to challenge Beijing, Mr. Trump has sometimes avoided confronting Mr. Xi, playing down differences or human-rights concerns. That was especially so during trade negotiations that ended in a limited deal that requires China to increase purchases of U.S. farm products and energy.
Mr. Pompeo, in the interview, said confronting China was a long-term policy for the president as well as a bipartisan priority for Congress, which has overwhelmingly passed legislation allowing for Chinese sanctions. “Look, the American people are not going to allow our economic work, our talent to be stolen by the Chinese Communist Party,” he said.
Mr. Pompeo has previously made direct appeals to foreign citizens while attacking their governments, in speeches on Iran in 2018 and Venezuela in March.
Many world leaders have criticized the Trump administration’s foreign policy as unilateralist. But in recent weeks, Washington has seen key allies embrace its harder-edged approach to China.
That effort has been boosted by Beijing’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, its crackdown on civil liberties in Hong Kong, the mass detention of Muslim ethnic groups in Xinjiang, and its recent confrontation with neighboring India on their Himalayan border.
This month, the U.K. announced it will bar equipment made by Chinese company Huawei Technologies Co. from the country’s 5G telecommunications networks following intense lobbying by the U.S., which says the company poses security risks. Huawei denies it does so.
India cited similar cybersecurity concerns last month in banning dozens of Chinese mobile apps, including social media platforms TikTok and WeChat, after the border clash with Chinese troops left 20 Indian soldiers dead.
In the speech, Mr. Pompeo urged like-minded countries to exert coordinated pressure on the Chinese Communist Party. “We must induce China to change in more creative and assertive ways, because Beijing’s actions threaten our people and our prosperity,” he said.
The shifting global consensus on China is giving new prominence to Mr. Pompeo, who has emerged in recent months as the administration’s top critic of Beijing and a force in policy making. His public savaging of Beijing over the coronavirus, which first emerged in China, made him a target for China’s displeasure. State television aired commentary calling Mr. Pompeo the “common enemy of mankind.” and a “liar.”
Mr. Pompeo, a former congressman from Kansas and Central Intelligence Agency director, took over at the State Department in 2018 as the administration was shifting its approach to China—away from working with Beijing on North Korea and toward confronting it on trade and its aspirations for global power.
Andrew Kim, a former senior CIA officer who worked with Mr. Pompeo at the agency, recalls that Mr. Pompeo held a pragmatic view of China’s leadership, believing, for example, that Beijing would undermine Hong Kong’s autonomy if it suited its interest.
“He never served in Beijing, he never served in Hong Kong, but he called it correctly,” said Mr. Kim, a current fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Thursday’s speech included a critical summary of Mr. Pompeo’s meeting in June in Hawaii with China’s top foreign-policy official, Yang Jiechi, at a time of strained relations. “It was the same old story—words, but literally no offer to change any of the behaviors,” he said.
“The only way to truly change Communist China is to act not on the basis of what Chinese leaders say but how they behave,” Mr. Pompeo said. “Distrust and verify.”
In working out a new China policy, Mr. Pompeo has been joined by Attorney General William Barr, national security adviser Robert O’Brien and his deputy, Matthew Pottinger. Mr. Pompeo decided a public case needed to be made for a tougher China policy, and arranged for Messrs. O’Brien, Barr and Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray to give speeches addressing Beijing’s problematic behavior, according to a senior administration official.
Though drafted separately by the senior officials and their staffs, the speeches were designed to tackle different issues and build on each other, this official said. Mr. Barr looked at the role of the business community and Beijing’s efforts to co-opt it. Mr. O’Brien addressed ideology while Mr. Wray took on espionage and intellectual-property theft.
Mr. Pompeo held out the prospect of working cooperatively with Beijing. But much of the speech argues for a tough-minded approach, calling attention to unmet promises by China’s government and the way it treats its citizens.
“Communists always lie, but the biggest lie is that the Chinese Communist Party speaks for 1.4 billion people who are surveilled, oppressed and scared to speak out,” Mr. Pompeo plans to say.
The venue, the Nixon library in Yorba Linda, Calif., carries intentional symbolism because Mr. Nixon charted a new course of engagement with the leadership of China, according to a senior State Department official. The Trump administration sees that prior engagement with China’s leadership, aimed in part at putting pressure on the Soviet Union, as having run its course.
The audience is expected to include Wang Dan, a leader from the Tiananmen Square protests, and Wei Jingsheng, a democracy activist since the 1970s. Mr. Pompeo is expected to acknowledge them and to recall meetings with ethnic Uighurs and Kazakhs who escaped detention in Xinjiang, as well as his discussions with Hong Kong’s democracy leaders such as Nathan Law.
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https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/china-military-amphibious/
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Are you kidding? (Cognitive dissonance of the Left)
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/democrats-are-allowing-trump-to-frame-the-debate-on-china/ar-BB17cW4I?li=BBnbcA1
Just want to post the other side since we seem to have agreement here on the evil of the regime of China. This piece notes thst evil but stresses "cooperation".
They are right on one point, Democrats are losing on this issue where Ttump was way out front on it.
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Doug,
You don't want to read the latest Gilder Report ( yes he is back )
he still a bull on Qualcomm
but also Chinese companies
He is betting against the US and on China
seems convinced some of their technology is better and it is only a matter of time we adopt it . The Chinese will eventually embrace democracy and capitalism
and we will be mired in climate change identity politics regulation high taxes and the rest
he predicts (probably rightly so) China will blow past us
I would love to see a debate with GG and Gordon Chang:
From wikipedia:
"Collapse of China
Chang has said that the Chinese government would collapse in 2012 and 2016.[7][8] Chang also says that China is a "new dot-com bubble", adding that the rapid growth by China is not supported by various internal factors such as decrease in population growth as well as slowing retail sales.[9] In a separate interview, he remarked that China achieved its 149.2 percent of its current trade surplus with the United States through "lying, cheating, and stealing" and that if China decided to realize its threat that had been expressed since August 2007 to sell its US Treasuries, it would actually hurt its own economy which is reliant on exports to the United States; the economy of the United States would be hurt by a sell-off of Treasuries, causing the United States to buy less from China, which would in turn hurt the Chinese economy.[10]
Since 2001 Chang has made predictions that the Chinese government will eventually collapse.[11][12] Shen Dingli, director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University, wrote that Chang's predictions "collapse his own credibility."[13] John Tamny of RealClearMarkets has criticized Chang's predictions and analyses about China, stating that Chang possesses "limited knowledge of simple economics" and that "Chang’s feel for China has been impressively incorrect for close to twenty years, and if his latest commentary is at all indicative of his grasp of what authors economic growth, Chang’s batting average on the matter of China isn’t about to improve."[3"
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i forgot to mention GG also predicts China will become a Christian nation .
:-o
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[Geoge Gilder]
"betting against the US and on China"
Hard to say their technology is behind us anymore when they have all of ours - and are developing beyond that on their own. The Huawei 5G stuff is an example of this. The competitors seem to be Ericsson (Sweden) and Nokia? (Finland). Qualcomm doesn't seem to making the infrastructure backbone of 5G. Or else they are late.
"Still bullish on Qualcomm"
Good! They dominate with the chip in the smartphone (teleputer). All of what he predicted on that came true. Maybe Qualcomm is going to make the rest of the network, catch up with Huawei or go by them. I hope so.
For a freedom nut with high moral religious beliefs, Gilder doesn't seem to caught up in the China-bad diagnosis that the rest of us see. The old theory was that technology and prosperity would run past the control of the regime and enable the toppling. Instead, new technology has made dissent or challenge to the regime impossible,strengthening the control of the regime.
Bias note: These Chinese tech companies are under control of the Chinese regime. Gilder gains more access when he writes favorably or forgivingly of the regime,. He loses his access if he speaks out against them.
I wrote a post on the Gilder forum 20 years ago, "The Great Fall of China", predicting what Gordon Chang predicts in "The Coming Collapse of China". Wrong, so far.
"I forgot to mention GG also predicts China will become a Christian nation."
?? I can't even predict the US will become one.
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China declines to forgive debt. Prefers to own countries.
https://www.nation.co.ke/kenya/news/africa/china-dithers-on-africa-debt-forgiveness-over-complex-loans-1906448
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Down Under Doubles Down on Checking China
Trump challenges allies to pull their weight, and Australia steps up with courage and resolve.
By John Lee
July 27, 2020 6:42 pm ET
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U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meet Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Defense Minister Linda Reynolds in Sydney, Aug. 4, 2019.
PHOTO: JONATHAN ERNST/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Defense Minister Linda Reynolds will meet their American counterparts Tuesday in Washington for annual meetings known as Ausmin. Then they will fly home to Australia and quarantine for two weeks to minimize the spread of Covid-19—a requirement for those arriving from abroad.
It is extraordinary that the Australians are willing to tolerate two weeks of inconvenience to meet with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper. Virtual meetings are the norm. The decision to travel to the U.S. says something about how important America is to Australian security and prosperity—and about the threat China poses to both countries.
It is also evidence that the Trump administration’s managing of allies, at least in Asia and the Pacific, has more to commend it than critics concede. It is true that staunch allies such as Japan and Australia find the president’s unpredictable style deeply unsettling. But if the objective is to persuade allies to step up and carry their weight, then that is exactly what Australia is doing.
Like many countries in the Indo-Pacific mugged by reality, Australia has been on a journey with China. The pandemic has focused minds on what must be done. The Communist Party under Xi Jinping is nothing if not a devotee of the Leninist precept: Probe with bayonets and if you encounter mush, proceed; if you encounter steel, withdraw. Good will has little currency. Timidity will only invite Beijing to demand greater subservience.
It is in this spirit that Australia released its 2020 Strategic Defense Update earlier this month. The commitment to spend roughly $400 billion (in U.S. dollars) on national defense over the next decade, including almost $190 billion earmarked for capability enhancements, is eye-catching. But as important is what Australia plans to spend the money on: long-range and hypersonic missiles, unmanned combat vehicles and cyber capabilities. This can be explained only by a desire to counter the People’s Liberation Army. The goal is to make China think twice about expanding its martial reach and presence in the Indo-Pacific.
Far from retreating into isolationism, Australia is reaching out of its comfort zone—defending the continent—and looking to help alter the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific. But this is possible only if America takes the lead, from strategic posture to developing offensive capabilities and operating the military assets jointly. Australia can’t push back against China alone. In other words, Australia has doubled down on the alliance as its best option.
Moreover, it is significant that Canberra is choosing to do this when relations between Washington and Beijing are more hostile than at any point since before Richard Nixon went to China in 1972. China has also turned up the pressure by imposing trade sanctions on products such as Australian barley. Regardless, Australia and Japan under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have emerged as the southern and northern anchors of the American regional alliance system.
As someone who served in the Australian government during the last year of President Obama’s administration and the first year of the current one, I can attest that the obstacle to greater Australian courage wasn’t a lack of faith in U.S. power but doubts about American resolve. Canberra wouldn’t contemplate such bold moves and risk punishment from China if America were likely to leave Australia fluttering in the breeze.
Mr. Trump might lead an unpredictable administration, but his determination in this fight is not in question. There’s also a growing consensus among allies that the pandemic has changed the relationship between Washington and Beijing in ways that will last longer than any one administration.
All of this suggests that this week’s meetings will be one of the most important in many years. There will be differences between the two countries, as is expected between a superpower and a smaller one. For example, Australians lament diminished American influence in regional institutions such as the East Asian Summit, which Mr. Trump didn’t attend in 2019. That provided a pulpit for Beijing to bully its neighbors and extend its narrative of American absence.
Chinese diplomats frequently mock and dismiss the 1951 security treaty Anzus as a relic of the Cold War. But provocations by the Communist Party in China have given the alliance renewed purpose. Messrs. Pompeo and Esper and Ms. Payne and Ms. Reynolds will discuss a common objective: ensuring that the Communist Party meets collective steel whenever it probes and pushes.
Mr. Lee is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and the U.S. Studies Centre in Sydney. He was senior national security adviser to the Australian foreign minister, 2016-18.
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Hong Kong Considers Postponing Key Legislative Elections
2 MINS READ
Jul 28, 2020 | 18:54 GMT
Hong Kong’s September Legislative Council elections may be postponed amid the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, which would help the city’s pro-Beijing ruling party maintain control and remove a near-term focal point for protests. But a long delay could also reignite the opposition by creating a legislative vacuum and removing a legal way for citizens to express their level of satisfaction with the government. On July 28, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam met with elements of the Executive Council to discuss a potential delay to the legislative elections, but put off a final decision until after election nominations close at the end of the week.
The election could reportedly be delayed anywhere between several months to a full year, with some elements of the ruling camp backing the longer postponement.
Pro-democracy politicians have already accused the pro-Beijing camp of using a delay to hold on to power and facilitate a pro-Beijing agenda. The opposition pro-democracy camp had claimed it could gain a majority in the Legislative Council this election, building on a wave of dissatisfaction with the way Hong Kong’s new national security law was passed.
Lam and the pro-Beijing camp may hope that a delayed election would help create further emotional distance from the new security law, as well as also offer more time for an economic recovery in both mainland China and Hong Kong to temper any potential business community support for the opposition camp. But a long delay could easily backfire, should it be perceived as merely a pretext to solidify a pro-Beijing agenda and further erode Hong Kong’s special status. The September elections are a key benchmark in the direction of Hong Kong politics, both in the outcome of the election and as a measure of social protest. The new national security and the resurgent COVID-19 pandemic have curtailed major demonstrations in Hong Kong, but have not undermined support for the pro-democracy camp, as evidenced by the high voter turnout at the recent opposition party primaries.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/chinese-networks-dominate-chemical-cash-sectors-of-drug-cartel-business_3441317.html?ref=brief_News&utm_source=morningbriefnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb
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A Hong Kong property tycoon wants to build a city in Ireland to host 50,000 emigrants from the semi-autonomous city. Ivan Ko, the founder of the Victoria Harbour Group (VHG), an international charter city investment company, hopes to find a 50 square kilometer site between Dublin and Belfast to create a new city, named Nextpolis, from scratch. Ko has pitched the plan, which would include schools that teach in Cantonese, to Irish officials, arguing it would fit the government’s stated desire to develop regions outside the capital. (via The Guardian)
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A Hong Kong property tycoon wants to build a city in Ireland to host 50,000 emigrants from the semi-autonomous city. Ivan Ko, the founder of the Victoria Harbour Group (VHG), an international charter city investment company, hopes to find a 50 square kilometer site between Dublin and Belfast to create a new city, named Nextpolis, from scratch. Ko has pitched the plan, which would include schools that teach in Cantonese, to Irish officials, arguing it would fit the government’s stated desire to develop regions outside the capital. (via The Guardian)
We should be making that happen here.
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Amen!
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https://news.yahoo.com/hundreds-chinese-fishing-vessels-found-234229826.html
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The U.S.-China Ideological Divide and the Challenge of Cohesion
Rodger Baker
Rodger Baker
Senior VP of Strategic Analysis, Stratfor
8 MINS READ
Jul 30, 2020 | 10:00 GMT
A series of foreign policy speeches by key officials in U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has sought to redefine the U.S.-China strategic competition as one based on conflicting core ideologies between those of the Chinese Communist Party and those of the free world. But to be effective, the United States needs to revive domestic unity and engender global cooperation, while China only needs to maintain domestic unity and exploit global divisions.
Shaping a China Policy
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered on July 23 the last of a quartet of speeches by White House officials laying out the U.S. case against China. Pompeo called on "the freedom-loving nations of the world" to draw common lines in the sand, and collaborate to "induce China to change." The speeches, taken together, reframe Washington's China policy in ideological terms, and seek to both unify U.S. actions toward China and serve as a nucleus for a coordinated global response.
Evoking Cold War imagery of an ideological battle between freedom and tyranny, Pompeo also stated that he has "faith we can defend freedom because of the sweet appeal of freedom itself." But he also emphasized that the new U.S. approach to Beijing would not be one of Cold War containment. Unlike the Soviet Union, China is integrated into the world system. It cannot simply be isolated. In a further nod to today's more complex world, Pompeo suggested a looser leadership role for the United States as well, noting that countries would each have to determine their own way of ensuring their national and economic sovereignty from Chinese encroachment.
At their core, the U.S. administration's China speeches are more traditional and ideological, painting a picture of a United States fighting to preserve universal freedoms, while at the same time suggesting that China is seeking to strengthen its authoritarianism and exploit the world for its own gain. It is an attempt to shift from what has largely been seen as a transactional or rejectionist policy (securing individual U.S. trade goals or countering China for the sake of countering China) to one with a clearer goal — that is, changing the behavior of the Chinese Communist Party. That is not an easier goal, nor is it any less antagonistic. But it does shift from a negative to a positive agenda, which is a key step in building a national narrative that can provide the impetus behind a broader policy initiative.
The Challenge of Unity
To foster acceptance of and alignment with these goals, the United States must both shape a common domestic understanding and facilitate a more cooperative international response to the framework. Domestic social and political dynamics, coupled with the social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 crisis, make the first extremely difficult. With fewer than 100 days left until the U.S. presidential election, polarized politics will only grow more fractious. And the likely close election outcome will continue to propel partisan divisions and identity politics. If a global pandemic and the worst unemployment in U.S. history cannot encourage political unity in Congress and on American streets, it is hard to see what would, outside an even worse catastrophe or the exhaustion of time. Even if there is relatively strong bipartisan support for challenging China on human rights, intellectual property and unfair trade practices, it will be an uphill march to try and shape a common ideological narrative to rally the U.S. people and government. And there are many voices still arguing for continued cooperation and dialogue with China, rather than overt confrontation.
Internationally, there has been a move to revisit how China is perceived, particularly amid the COVID-19 crisis. The United Kingdom, India and Australia are all moving to positions more aligned to those espoused by Pompeo — with London making moves against Chinese tech giant Huawei, Canberra following Washington's lead in officially rejecting Chinese claims in the South China Sea, and New Delhi rethinking its long-standing policy of non-alignment in the face of recent border clashes with Chinese troops and continued Chinese maritime activity in the Indian Ocean. Japan, too, could be added to that list, though in its more subtle way, using economic and defense cooperation to strengthen Southeast Asian nations' against Chinese enticements and encroachments. An alignment of maritime powers serves as a strong backbone of coordination against China. But many countries, particularly those in Europe, remain reticent to fully take the United States' "side" against China due to differences over several other policies, from trade to Iran.
The Benefits of Disunity
From the Chinese perspective, Beijing's strategic fear is a coordinated global effort to "draw a line" and hold China to the existing standards and norms of the Western-oriented world system. Beijing is actively seeking to alter the global system to better fit its own concepts of the relationship between the state, the people and industry. It does not want to be locked into a rules-based order that is based on a North Atlantic consensus that favors the political, economic and social systems of the United States and Western Europe. China sees those rules as constraints and attempts to force political change, thus interfering with China's national sovereignty.
Beijing needs to maintain internal unity, but externally it does not need to build a counter-coalition. All it needs to do is find ways to exploit differences that undermine global cohesion. Domestic cohesion in China, however, is not necessarily an easy thing. China is not a monolith but a complex empire and a state made of many nations, rife with ethnic, religious and socio-economic divisions. While China manages the first two with a combination of strong central control and acculturation, it manages the latter through economic policies and an appeal to nationalism. China's ongoing economic restructuring has broken the old promise that everyone would get rich, even if some faster than others. The gap between the wealthy and the rest has widened in the past decade, and economic reform coupled with global recessions leaves little room for the Chinese interior to close it.
In some ways, China has an easier path to its objectives than those advocating for a harder line against Beijing in the United States, at least in the near term.
Earlier this year, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang warned that Beijing must address the grievances of the country's 600 million low-paid citizens, many in the interior. The Belt and Road initiative is in part geared toward shifting the attention of China's heartland from the wealthy coast to the frontier opportunities to the west and south. But to further strengthen domestic cohesion, China counts on a strong nationalist narrative that frames China as battered by the West and constrained from taking its rightful place among powerful nations. For now, that nationalism is proving a potent force, but it is always at the risk of Beijing losing control of the narrative.
On the international front, Beijing has long relied on exploiting divisions, both within countries and between countries, to gain a secure footing and counter any coordinated pressure. Chinese economic and political ties with Greece and Hungary, for example, paid off when they derailed an EU statement supporting the Philippines following the Permanent Court of Arbitration's ruling on the South China Sea in 2016. Chinese partners in the European Union have also blocked EU motions to censure China for human rights and civil liberty violations. In Southeast Asia, China has frequently used its close economic relations with Cambodia and Laos to undermine unity among members in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) when it comes to the South China Sea or Chinese maritime actions. China also exploits rifts inside countries, including by incentivizing or interfering with select companies to influence political decisions, providing moral or financial support to competing groups, and engaging in information warfare to enflame social or political divisions.
The Ideological Struggle in a Multipolar World
In some ways, then, China has an easier path to its objectives than those advocating for a harder line against Beijing in the United States, at least in the near term. The United States must overcome both domestic disunity and shape a more cohesive international coordination — China merely needs to find the cracks within and among key countries and ensure that those cracks are not easy to bridge. But this is a short-term strategy, and one that may be effective only for a few more years. China's expanding political, economic and military power is no longer something many countries can ignore. Even Italy, the first major European country to join the Belt and Road initiative, has curtailed Huawei participation in its 5G rollout.
China's ability to divide is a strategy to gain time, further strengthen China's economic and military strength, and enhance and secure key trade routes for the future. But as ideological lines are drawn, the challenges for both the United States and China will militate against a repeat of the Cold War. There will also not be a bifurcation of the world into two competing blocs, but rather an emergence of several competing poles of power, as noted in Stratfor's 2020-2030 decade forecast:
"Over the decade, the United States and China — buoyed by their economic, political, military and social power — will be the most significant poles, with Russia and Europe each playing important, albeit less powerful, roles. Numerous smaller alliances and alignments will emerge, regionally or topically focused, seeking to use their shared interests and pooled resources to better maneuver among the larger powers."
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https://youtu.be/zT7CrEoqoSU
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https://spectator.org/ccp-higher-education-confucius-institutes/
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Pandemic Lays Bare U.S. Reliance on China for Drugs
Acetaminophen, antibiotics and high blood pressure treatments are among a slew of pharmaceutical ingredients made predominantly by China. Disruptions and high demand have expanded concerns about the supply of medicines.
By Chuin-Wei Yap
Aug. 5, 2020 9:42 am ET
The shortage of a simple, over-the-counter painkiller shows how dependent the U.S. has become on China for vital pharmaceutical supplies.
For weeks this spring, as the coronavirus pandemic gripped the world, Nicole Izsak wasn’t able to stock up on acetaminophen at her neighborhood pharmacies on New York City’s Roosevelt Island.
“They had nothing of any brand,” Ms. Izsak, a nurse who volunteers at the island’s Covid-19 medical facility, said after occasionally checking at the local Duane Reade and Walgreens. The headache remedy found in most families’ medicine cabinets is also a key fever reducer.
Acetaminophen is one of a slew of life-or-death ingredients for medicines now produced in significant amounts by China. Many of these are commodity chemicals that U.S. makers found unprofitable to produce. China makes about 70% of the acetaminophen used in the U.S., the Commerce Department and analysts estimate.
The dependence, exposed by the supply-chain disruptions and a surge in buying brought on by the pandemic, has raised concerns among Trump administration officials, lawmakers and corporate chiefs.
A $765 million government loan to Eastman Kodak Co. last month was targeted at reducing America’s reliance on other countries, including China, for drugs, according to the U.S. International Development Finance Corp., which provided the loan. Kodak will use the funds to produce ingredients for generic drugs in the U.S. and said it expects the production of pharmaceutical ingredients to make up 30% to 40% of its business over time.
Other important pharmaceutical ingredients made in China include the blood anticoagulant heparin, of which 80% of the global supply is made in China, and even higher levels of the world’s antibiotics, according to estimates from industry experts at the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank; the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, created by Congress to study national security and trade; and others.
Commonly used antibiotics amoxicillin, ciprofloxacin and tetracycline are particularly dependent on China, according to industry analysts and Indian drugmakers that rely on Chinese material. High blood pressure treatments, including valsartan, are also predominantly produced in China, the analysts say.
India, the world’s largest producer of generic medicines, depends on China for 80% of its active pharmaceutical ingredients, or API, the chemicals that give drugs their medicinal properties, according to industry data and Indian companies.
Overall, China makes nearly half of the planet’s API, according to Britain’s Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency and pharmaceutical analysts. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it doesn’t have information about the volume of API produced in China.
“The national security risks of increased Chinese dominance of the global API market cannot be overstated,” said Christopher Priest, deputy assistant director at the Defense Health Agency’s operations directorate, part of the Defense Department that ensures medically ready combat forces.
The coronavirus crisis caused disruptions for a wide swath of manufacturing. Attention has mostly focused on the inability to source testing and protective gear such as masks from China. Important materials that come from other countries were also disrupted by the pandemic—including testing swabs made by a key supplier in northern Italy, which was hit hard by the outbreak.
Big Pharma
China has become a dominant producer of medical devices and pharmaceuticals for the world, especially for commodity drugs like acetaminophen. Exports to the U.S. of that common pain reliever dropped in February, when the coronavirus pandemic affected China, but picked up again in March and April.
million
$35
billion
From China to the U.S.
From China to the world
30
30
20
25
10
0
20
2018
’19
’20
15
$1.5
billion
From China to the world
10
1.0
5
0.5
0
0
2010
’11
’12
’13
’14
’15
’16
’17
’18
’19
2010
’11
’12
’13
’14
’15
’16
’17
’18
’19
Sources: China General Administration of Customs (pharmaceutical exports); U.S. Commerce Department (Acetaminophen exports to the U.S.); UN Comtrade (Acetaminophen exports to the world)
As Chinese factories and exports shut down during that country’s quarantine, the flow of medical ingredients dwindled. China’s exports to the U.S. of acetaminophen and related pharmaceutical chemicals fell 70% in February from January, reaching their lowest level in seven years, according to data from the Commerce Department. Exports picked up again in March and April.
Pharmaceutical-industry analysts said the February drop was likely caused by China pivoting to local needs as it battled the pathogen.
Just-in-time manufacturing and stocking have become standard among the pharmaceutical companies that package the Chinese ingredients into medicines, and also among high-quantity buyers such as hospitals. Holding slim inventories keeps costs low when trade flows are smooth, but results in shortages when components are delayed or demand increases suddenly.
The U.S. Senate in March introduced two bills to restore America’s capacity to make API. The bills, now working their way through Congress, seek to probe how much America’s national defense systems rely on Chinese pharmaceuticals, call for more disclosure on drug sourcing by drugmakers and authorize $100 million to encourage companies to make more API in America.
President Trump’s chief trade negotiator, Robert Lighthizer, told fellow trade ministers from the world’s biggest economies earlier this year that one lesson of the pandemic was that “over-dependence on other countries as a source of cheap medical products and supplies has created a strategic vulnerability.”
The FDA in April attributed some recent drug shortages to higher American demand for drugs, and one unspecified shortage in February to a coronavirus-affected plant in China. The regulator said it has asked drugmakers to “evaluate their entire supply chain.”
Kodak will use a government loan to begin making pharmaceutical ingredients in the U.S. Above, the company’s headquarters in Rochester, N.Y.
PHOTO: MIKE BRADLEY/BLOOMBERG NEWS
Johnson & Johnson, which owns and produces the Tylenol brand under a subsidiary, said it attributed Tylenol shortages in the U.S. to “record-high” demand. It said the majority of its Tylenol is made with American-made ingredients and that it had no supply issues with China. The company declined to provide sales or production data for Tylenol. Industry analysts estimate the brand accounts for about 15% of the U.S. analgesics market.
China’s commerce ministry said in a statement in April that China is willing to support and assist countries affected by Covid-19 and “has not and will not restrict export of medical supplies.”
Some Chinese political thinkers have become more vocal about advocating the use of medical supplies for political advantage.
“If China wants to retaliate against the U.S. at this time, aside from a travel ban, it could also announce strategic restrictions on the export of medical products to the U.S.,” said an opinion essay by Huang Sheng, a financial commentator and nationalist book author, published in March on state-run Xinhua News Agency.
When President Trump said in April he believed Beijing wanted him to lose the re-election, the editor of a nationalist-leaning tabloid tweeted, “Mr. Trump, you can’t win without China…We provide medical supplies to the U.S.”
Chinese pharmaceutical executives told Chinese state media in late March that logistics disruptions would likely cause overall global API supply to fall by 20%.
Chinese drugmakers, including Zhejiang Huahai Pharmaceutical Co., the world’s leading producer of antihypertensive drugs, said that the pandemic hampered their ability to ship products.
China’s Zhejiang Huahai Pharmaceutical Co., in Zhejiang Province, is the world’s leading producer of antihypertensive drugs.
PHOTO: QILAI SHEN/BLOOMBERG NEWS
The world’s largest factory for acetaminophen, the powdery chemical also known as paracetamol, belongs to Anqiu Lu’an Pharmaceutical Co. in China’s Shandong province. It can produce 40,000 metric tons a year, about a quarter of global demand, and it ships 80% of its output to more than 100 countries. The company said its operations weren’t affected by coronavirus closures.
The U.S. was once the world’s largest producer of acetaminophen, which is derived from phenol, a byproduct of petroleum processing. Until around 2000, American companies including Monsanto Co. and global giants such as BASF Corp. maintained acetaminophen factories near oil refinery complexes in Texas and Louisiana.
Production capacity left American shores as the pharmaceutical supply chain globalized, and intensifying competition pushed ingredient factories toward low-cost Asia. Most American and global pharmaceutical companies began to focus on pursuing potentially lucrative, blockbuster patents rather than producing lower-margin bulk pharmaceuticals that are no longer covered by patents.
China had a surplus of low-wage chemists, less-stringent safety and environmental standards and, since 2001, vastly greater access to global markets after joining the World Trade Organization.
The chemical manufacturing industry “over the last 30 years has gradually moved offshore,” said Benjamin Shobert, senior associate for international health at Seattle-based National Bureau of Asian Research. “Trying to unwind this is trying to unwind globalization.”
Chinese companies—as well as some international companies such as French pharmaceutical giant Rhodia SA—put their factories in China’s manufacturing-heavy eastern coast, including in Shandong, amid one of the world’s largest concentrations of oil refineries.
Fusen Pharmaceutical Co., in Nanyang, China, resumed production in February.
PHOTO: FENG DAPENG/XINHUA/ZUMA PRESS
China’s industrial and economic boom fed the production of pharmaceutical chemicals. Growing demand for petroleum buoyed acetaminophen production. Soybean oil from expanding crops was used in the production of antibiotics. Rising pork consumption meant more heparin, which is made from pig intestines.
Before it was incorporated in 1998, Lu’an was a small state entity responsible for barely 1% of global acetaminophen output, according to Chinese industry and state records. By 2008, China’s industry had been reduced to four major producers, with Lu’an at the top.
Rhodia quit the pharmaceutical ingredient business in 2008. That left American company Covidien—now owned by Minnesota-based Medtronic PLC—as the world’s sole major non-Asian acetaminophen maker. As profit margins fell, Covidien spun off its acetaminophen business into Irish-based Mallinckrodt PLC in 2011.
By then, Lu’an was aggressively expanding overseas. In the U.S., Lu’an built ties with pharmaceutical importers, many among them small Chinese-run companies, shipping records show. These firms process Lu’an’s acetaminophen into tablets and capsules for generics and secondary brands.
Such importers also help Chinese makers like Lu’an navigate relationships and regulations requiring FDA approval around American drug wholesale and distribution, said Edwin de Voogd, a former senior vice president at Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group Co.
Privately held Lu’an doesn’t regularly disclose financial data. A Wall Street Journal calculation indicates it produced about $250 million worth of acetaminophen last year, based on average prices.
Mallinckrodt, which still has five plants in the U.S. that produce acetaminophen, said in a statement that it supports strengthening domestic API supply. “Overreliance on non-U.S. manufacturers for essential medicines, notably acetaminophen, puts the U.S. healthcare system at risk,” it said.
Last year, Mallinckrodt posted net sales of acetaminophen API of $190 million, or 6% of its total net sales, down from 13% in 2013. The company meets less than a fifth of estimated global demand for acetaminophen.
French giant Sanofi SA said in February it would create a new company to make APIs. “In Europe, the new API industry champion is expected to help in balancing the industry’s heavy reliance on API sourced from the Asian region,” Sanofi said.
Lu’an attributed its success to “huge-scale” production and competitive prices. “Bringing API back to the U.S. is costly and lacks market competitiveness,” the company said to the Journal in a written statement. It said U.S. efforts to reshore its API manufacturing “don’t conform with the laws of market economics.”
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In Hong Kong, a Series of Raids and Arrests Portends Further Crackdowns
3 MINS READ
Aug 10, 2020 | 21:25 GMT
With elections now delayed to 2021, the recent arrests of activists and a pro-democracy media tycoon in Hong Kong likely herald a new period of more aggressive crackdowns on figures Beijing perceives as threats to the city's stability. On Aug. 10, Hong Kong's newly established National Security Department police unit carried out a series of raids and arrests across the city that netted 10 individuals for allegedly violating the new national security law.
Media tycoon Jimmy Lai is the most high-profile figure arrested in the Aug. 10 raids, with allegations including foreign collusion under the national security law and conspiracy to defraud. Police also arrested his two sons and several corporate leaders at his newspaper, Apple Daily, seizing laptops, phones and bank documents. Police are also seeking a top Lai aide, U.S. citizen Mark Simon, who is currently outside of the city. Lai was also arrested in February 2020 for illegal assembly after attending protests in August-October 2019.
Police also detained prominent activist Agnes Chow, reportedly for foreign collusion or inciting secession. Chow was a standing committee member of Demosisto, a pro-democracy organization and political party that had advocated for Hong Kong's self-determination until it dissolved itself following the passage of the national security law in January.
Police arrested two pro-democracy activists for alleged foreign collusion related to the U.K.-based nongovernmental organization and lobbying group "Fight for Freedom, Stand with Hong Kong," which recently published a report on Hong Kong police brutality.
Hong Kong's year-long election delay will grant Beijing and city authorities greater room to escalate crackdowns without undermining the legitimacy of pro-Beijing candidates, or sacrificing the city's political system and jeopardizing its role as a global financial hub. Hong Kong authorities have been gradually increasing the scope of their national security law's application since its June 30 promulgation — using it first to arrest protesters, then charging activists posting online, disqualifying legislative council candidates and issuing warrants for overseas activists.
The next year in Hong Kong's ongoing political crisis will be defined by the interim plan for the legislative council until 2021, but a more heavy-handed approach — or an attempt to ram through controversial legislation — would risk inflaming Hong Kong's already polarized political scene and providing another rallying point for dissent. In the National People's Congress Standing Committee meeting ending Aug. 11, Beijing will decide on how to proceed following the current legislative council term's expiration, as it remains unclear whether the election delay is constitutional. This could include measures that limit the power of the pro-democracy camp, either by ejecting some lawmakers on national security grounds or by wielding the national security law to prevent disruptive behavior. Beijing could also limit the legislative council to only emergency business.
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Freedom of speech? Gone. Freedom of the press? Done. Just to make sure you know they are communists - now ruling Hong Kong, they arrest his family too. Fair trial? No.
Two systems? That was a promise made to the world. This is an attack on the world.
Socialism without coercion? Doesn't exist. You can get your equality in a jail cell.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/jimmy-lai-is-arrested-in-hong-kong-11597101832?mod=opinion_lead_pos2
Jimmy Lai Is Arrested in Hong Kong
The pro-democracy media tycoon may face life in prison.
By The Editorial Board
Aug. 10, 2020 7:23 pm ET
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Media mogul Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, founder of Apple Daily, is seen escorted by Hong Kong police at the Apple Daily office in Hong Kong, Aug. 10.
PHOTO: APPLE DAILY/REUTERS
Last year’s protesters in Hong Kong are quickly becoming this year’s martyrs for democracy. On Monday police arrested media tycoon Jimmy Lai under the new national-security law, and some 200 officers raided the newsroom of his pro-democracy Apple Daily.
Police arrested Mr. Lai for sedition, criminal fraud and “collusion” with vaguely defined foreign forces. Mr. Lai’s real crime is that he is Hong Kong’s most effective international advocate and speaks the truth about the Communist Party. Mr. Lai met last year in Washington with Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Members of Congress, and he has also written for these pages (WSJ).
If Mr. Lai, 72, is convicted under the new law he may face life in prison. On Monday police also arrested Mr. Lai’s two sons and four employees of his publishing company
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Beijing Moves to Temper Tensions in Hong Kong With an Extended Legislative Term
3 MINS READ
Aug 11, 2020 | 19:49 GMT
HIGHLIGHTS
Beijing's recent decision to extend the Hong Kong legislature's term creates a cover for Chinese action, which seeks to temper tensions both within the city as well as with the United States, while still emphasizing the continuity of One Country, Two Systems by putting the responsibility in the hands of the Hong Kong government. On Aug. 11, China's National People's Congress Standing Committee approved extending the term of the current Hong Kong legislative council for at least a year, leaving the Hong Kong government to decide whether the four pro-democracy lawmakers disqualified from elections will keep their seats in the legislature. Reports suggest that lawmakers will not be required to swear new oaths of office or make a controversial pledge to uphold the new national security law. ...
Beijing is adopting more measured tactics to manage Hong Kong's legislative affairs, calibrating levers that enable it to control dissent without unduly distressing the city's business communities. Allowing Hong Kong's government to internally manage the interim plan for the legislative council is the next step in this strategy, having already escalated tensions in the city by delaying the elections and carrying out high-profile national security arrests.
Beijing's recent decision to extend the Hong Kong legislature's term creates a cover for Chinese action, which seeks to temper tensions both within the city as well as with the United States, while still emphasizing the continuity of "one country, two systems" by putting the responsibility in the hands of the Hong Kong government. On Aug. 11, China's National People's Congress Standing Committee approved extending the term of the current Hong Kong legislative council for at least a year, leaving the Hong Kong government to decide whether the four pro-democracy lawmakers disqualified from elections will keep their seats in the legislature. Reports suggest that lawmakers will not be required to swear new oaths of office or make a controversial pledge to uphold the new national security law.
On July 30, Hong Kong authorities disqualified 12 pro-democratic candidates, including the four incumbent lawmakers, from running in the next election for allegedly violating the new national security law.
An anonymous pro-Beijing Hong Kong politician said that China's decision on the term extension was based on input from Lam and pro-Beijing moderates, and was motivated by concerns about overly provoking tensions with the United States ahead of the November presidential election.
On July 31, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced that the September legislative council elections would be delayed to 2021 due to a surge of COVID-19 cases in the city. She then submitted a request for Beijing to decide on how to proceed with the delay, given that the Hong Kong Basic law limits legislative terms to four years.
On Aug. 10, Hong Kong's new National Security Department police unit conducted a series of arrests and raids targeting activists and prominent pro-democracy figures, including media tycoon Jimmy Lai.
The Chinese government is adopting more measured tactics to manage Hong Kong's legislative affairs, calibrating levers that enable it to control dissent without distressing the city's business communities.
Over the next year, Beijing will have minimal tolerance for major disruptions to Hong Kong legislative activity and will not hesitate to target sitting lawmakers if necessary, likely relying on Hong Kong authorities to do so, as it works to enact policies that stabilize the city's politics and support its allies. Under the national security law, Hong Kong authorities can remove pro-democracy politicians from their seats or press charges should they disrupt parliament or stand in the way of the pro-Beijing agenda.
The legislative council has the potential to vote on controversial legislation, including limitations on the filibuster, which has often been used by pro-democracy lawmakers, as well as measures that could allow Hong Kongers in mainland China to vote in Hong Kong elections.
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Xi doesn't want any ugly footage from HK hurting Beijing Biden.
Beijing Moves to Temper Tensions in Hong Kong With an Extended Legislative Term
3 MINS READ
Aug 11, 2020 | 19:49 GMT
HIGHLIGHTS
Beijing's recent decision to extend the Hong Kong legislature's term creates a cover for Chinese action, which seeks to temper tensions both within the city as well as with the United States, while still emphasizing the continuity of One Country, Two Systems by putting the responsibility in the hands of the Hong Kong government. On Aug. 11, China's National People's Congress Standing Committee approved extending the term of the current Hong Kong legislative council for at least a year, leaving the Hong Kong government to decide whether the four pro-democracy lawmakers disqualified from elections will keep their seats in the legislature. Reports suggest that lawmakers will not be required to swear new oaths of office or make a controversial pledge to uphold the new national security law. ...
Beijing is adopting more measured tactics to manage Hong Kong's legislative affairs, calibrating levers that enable it to control dissent without unduly distressing the city's business communities. Allowing Hong Kong's government to internally manage the interim plan for the legislative council is the next step in this strategy, having already escalated tensions in the city by delaying the elections and carrying out high-profile national security arrests.
Beijing's recent decision to extend the Hong Kong legislature's term creates a cover for Chinese action, which seeks to temper tensions both within the city as well as with the United States, while still emphasizing the continuity of "one country, two systems" by putting the responsibility in the hands of the Hong Kong government. On Aug. 11, China's National People's Congress Standing Committee approved extending the term of the current Hong Kong legislative council for at least a year, leaving the Hong Kong government to decide whether the four pro-democracy lawmakers disqualified from elections will keep their seats in the legislature. Reports suggest that lawmakers will not be required to swear new oaths of office or make a controversial pledge to uphold the new national security law.
On July 30, Hong Kong authorities disqualified 12 pro-democratic candidates, including the four incumbent lawmakers, from running in the next election for allegedly violating the new national security law.
An anonymous pro-Beijing Hong Kong politician said that China's decision on the term extension was based on input from Lam and pro-Beijing moderates, and was motivated by concerns about overly provoking tensions with the United States ahead of the November presidential election.
On July 31, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced that the September legislative council elections would be delayed to 2021 due to a surge of COVID-19 cases in the city. She then submitted a request for Beijing to decide on how to proceed with the delay, given that the Hong Kong Basic law limits legislative terms to four years.
On Aug. 10, Hong Kong's new National Security Department police unit conducted a series of arrests and raids targeting activists and prominent pro-democracy figures, including media tycoon Jimmy Lai.
The Chinese government is adopting more measured tactics to manage Hong Kong's legislative affairs, calibrating levers that enable it to control dissent without distressing the city's business communities.
Over the next year, Beijing will have minimal tolerance for major disruptions to Hong Kong legislative activity and will not hesitate to target sitting lawmakers if necessary, likely relying on Hong Kong authorities to do so, as it works to enact policies that stabilize the city's politics and support its allies. Under the national security law, Hong Kong authorities can remove pro-democracy politicians from their seats or press charges should they disrupt parliament or stand in the way of the pro-Beijing agenda.
The legislative council has the potential to vote on controversial legislation, including limitations on the filibuster, which has often been used by pro-democracy lawmakers, as well as measures that could allow Hong Kongers in mainland China to vote in Hong Kong elections.
-
...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/jimmy-lai-is-arrested-in-hong-kong-11597101832?mod=opinion_lead_pos2
Jimmy Lai Is Arrested in Hong Kong
The pro-democracy media tycoon may face life in prison. ...
This move is so egregious even the NYT is offended:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/10/opinion/china-hong-kong-arrest.html
We are all Hong Kongers now? In what ways would Democrats stand up to China after they resisted all ways Trump stood up to them.
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The China Iran partnership is Exhibit I that China is the enemy of the world. Noted previously, Iran may have been the first country to be slaughtered by the Wuhan virus, begging the question no one seems to ask, what exactly was the connection between the evil, dangerous lab and the world's number one sponsor of terror?
Trump had them near collapse and China breathes new life into the disaster that is the regime of Iran. Both are our enemy.
---------------------------
https://cgpolicy.org/articles/what-iran-gets-from-the-strategic-deal-with-china/
A Lifeline for Tehran
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Below is not from the ONION. The czech getting in on the act wrt China
https://www.opindia.com/2020/09/czech-mayor-reacts-chinese-foreign-minister-threat-taiwan-visit-speaker-milos-vystrcil/
India starts to troll the Chinese https://indianexpress.com/article/india/after-fresh-lac-tensions-india-urges-china-to-discipline-and-control-frontline-troops-from-provocative-actions-6579260/ (https://indianexpress.com/article/india/after-fresh-lac-tensions-india-urges-china-to-discipline-and-control-frontline-troops-from-provocative-actions-6579260/)
"Hours after China accused Indian troops of violating the consensus, India Tuesday hit back and said it has taken up the “matter of recent provocative and aggressive actions” with the Chinese side through both diplomatic and military channels and has “urged them to discipline and control their frontline troops from undertaking such provocative actions”."
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quote author=ya
Below is not from the ONION. The czech getting in on the act wrt China
https://www.opindia.com/2020/09/czech-mayor-reacts-chinese-foreign-minister-threat-taiwan-visit-speaker-milos-vystrcil/
--------------------------------------------------
- "In a rather unparliamentary tone"... I never thought to close a letter, "With pretending regards".
Why would you have any other regards for a totalitarian dictator threatening a free country, Czech Republic, for associating with a free and sovereign country, Taiwan.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sypX8ZPDdhc
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Supply chain remodel. The multilateral effort to reduce supply chain dependence on China is gaining momentum, at least on the surface. In Taiwan, diplomats from the United States and other Western nations met with Taiwanese officials to discuss development of a coalition of “like-minded” democracies aimed at shifting global supply chains. Japan, meanwhile, announced that Japanese manufacturers will be eligible for subsidies if they move operations from China to India or Bangladesh. (Previously, these firms were eligible only if they moved factories back home or to Southeast Asian countries.) And Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, speaking on Thursday to the U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Forum, repeated his call for a reshaping of global supply chains around “trust, reliability and policy stability,” rather than purely bottom line considerations.
It all sounds good, but these initiatives underscore how difficult it will be to make it worthwhile for companies to leave China. It’s a long-term trend worth watching. Still, while the pandemic has created a new sense of urgency to ease dependence on China, it’s also making it harder for cash-strapped companies to bear the costs of moving (especially to manufacturing hubs that lack China’s immense advantages) – and making it harder for cash-strapped governments to alter companies’ cost-benefit calculus. India remains a particularly hard sell. However much companies would like to “trust” Indian policy stability, its fight against the COVID-19 crisis is looking worse by the day
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https://www.wionews.com/world/big-blow-to-china-as-thailand-scraps-kra-canal-project-325142/amp?__twitter_impression=true
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-and-china-wield-dull-wedges-11599517629?mod=opinion_lead_pos10 (read it all)
They push the U.S. and Germany closer together rather than driving them apart.
By Walter Russell Mead Sept. 7, 2020
From the article:
...
The gap between the major European countries and China widened noticeably last week: France called for a European effort to develop homegrown 5G technology rather than relying on Huawei, and Germany adopted an “Indo-Pacific” strategy that will reduce its reliance on China. Both French and German officials reacted angrily to China’s threats against the Czechs.
...
neither China nor Russia is ready to do what it would take to pry Europe and Washington apart.
...
Ms. Merkel is not fond of Mr. Trump and vice versa, but both can recognize an overriding common interest. A smoother diplomat in Washington or a more flexible government in Berlin might ease the path for trans-Atlantic cooperation, but diplomatic tact isn’t what holds the alliance together.
...
autocratic governments get so used to bullying and intimidating their people that they fail to grasp how counterproductive such tactics can be when deployed overseas.
...
both Russia and China feel relatively unconstrained at the moment. With the U.S. consumed by election politics and domestic polarization, and the European Union still divided and slow-moving, neither Moscow nor Beijing seems to fear consequences for its reckless behavior. The rest of 2020 could have a few more nasty surprises up its sleeve.
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Doug:
This thread is for China matters that do not fall within existing threads (South China Sea, India-China, etc) so mMay I ask you to post that here?
https://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=1657.450
TY
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China’s Amphibian Dilemma: Straddling Land and Sea Ambitions
Rodger Baker
Rodger Baker
Senior VP of Strategic Analysis, Stratfor
12 MINS READ
Sep 7, 2020 | 10:00 GMT
Cadets from China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy march in formation before a ceremony at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on Sept. 30, 2019.
Cadets from China's navy march in formation before a ceremony at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on Sept. 30, 2019.
(Mark Schiefelbein - Pool/Getty Images)
HIGHLIGHTS
China borders the largest number of countries by land, and its navy now boasts the largest number of battle force ships by sea. With the pressures and opportunities of both a continental and maritime power, China faces an amphibian’s dilemma, as the characteristics best suited for life at sea and life at land may not always prove complementary. Traditional continental powers are more prone to autocratic leadership to manage their challenges, while traditional maritime powers lean toward democratic systems and more open markets. China’s attempt to straddle both can intensify sectionalism and exacerbate differences between the interior core that remains continental in outlook, and the coastal areas that become more maritime in outlook. This challenge is also highlighted in China’s attempts to reshape global norms and standards, which themselves largely represent the maritime world order. The apparent global political and economic dissonance is not merely caused by China seeking change, but...
"Land-based northerners have dominated Chinese culture throughout most of her history and whenever they have been in political control… China has been oriented primarily inwardly…. On the other hand, when control was exercised by South China groups… a strong maritime outlook was emphasized. … In the former instances, China functioned as a continental rimland state, in the latter as a maritime rimland state."
Donald W. Meinig, Heartland and Rimland in Eurasian History (1956)
China borders the largest number of countries by land, and its navy now boasts the largest number of battle force ships by sea. With the pressures and opportunities of both a continental and maritime power, China faces an amphibian’s dilemma, as the characteristics best suited for life at sea and life at land may not always prove complementary. Traditional continental powers are more prone to autocratic leadership to manage their challenges, while traditional maritime powers lean toward democratic systems and more open markets. China’s attempt to straddle both can intensify sectionalism and exacerbate differences between the interior core that remains continental in outlook, and the coastal areas that become more maritime in outlook.
This challenge is also highlighted in China’s attempts to reshape global norms and standards, which themselves largely represent the maritime world order. The apparent global political and economic dissonance is not merely caused by China seeking change, but by the very continental nature of China’s history. China is bringing a continental mindset to a maritime system. And though it is able to rally sympathy with others with a more continental history, China may find it difficult to bridge the continental/maritime divide.
China as a Continental Power
For most of its history, China has been a classic continental power. Initially a sedentary agricultural society on the northern plain along the Yellow River, China faced threats from both nomadic tribes to the north and west, as well as seafaring raiders along the east and southern coasts. Successive Chinese dynasties fought externally to secure buffer states and protect against outside powers, as well as internally to consolidate the fractious ethnic Han core, which stretched south to the Yangtze River and the rich rice land’s beyond.
Chinese empires followed a general pattern of dynastic rise and collapse:
Consolidation of the Han core under a strong central leadership.
Pressing outward along the periphery to counter external threats or capture new opportunities.
Expanding the bureaucracy to manage the sprawling empire.
Internal and external economic, political and military pressures weaken the center of power.
Some shock that finally breaks the back of a waning empire, starting over the cycle.
China’s reconsolidation came under external northern powers twice: the Yuan dynasty of the Mongols (1279-1368) and the Qing dynasty of the Manchu (1644-1912). During the Tang dynasty (618-906), China took its position as the “Middle Kingdom,” establishing suzerainty relationships with numerous nations around its expanding periphery, and engaging in international trade and diplomatic delegations across the Asian continent. But while trade and international connections expanded, China remained heavily focused on the continent, not at sea. Managing the myriad differing population and linguistic groups inside China and pressure from external threats shaped priorities, and trade outside of the expanded empire and bordering states was largely unnecessary.
China has flirted with a maritime focus in the past, often when power was centered in the south. The Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279) had a large navy for coastal defense and riverine operations. And when the Mongols conquered Korea and Southern Song, they turned that maritime power briefly against Japan, with two ultimately unsuccessful invasions. During the early Ming dynasty (1368-1644), where the capital was initially in southern China at Nanjing, Zheng He embarked on several voyages around Asia and Africa in his famed treasure fleets. While these marked a notable expansion of Chinese maritime activity, they were largely focused on asserting Chinese power and centrality through diplomatic and tribute collection delegations, rather than building trade routes or a long-term naval presence. And with the capital shifted back north to Beijing and internal troubles once again arising, China disposed of the fleet and turned continental once again.
Modern China has largely retained that continental focus. Like earlier peasant rebellions, the Chinese Communist revolution took root in the interior in the 1930s and 40s, despite the nationalist government having a maritime outlook from its southern base in Nanjing. And while Taiwan has always been a focus of the Communist Party’s unification of China, early consolidation focused on western regions, securing Xinjiang in 1950 and Tibet in 1951. Mao Zedong (1949-1976) focused heavily on China’s interior, at times with disastrous results, as in the Great Leap Forward. Even as Mao’s successor, Deng Xiaoping (1978-1989) moved to shift China’s economic policies and open the country to more trade, the Chinese government prioritized managing internal ethnic and social issues, as well as China’s numerous disputes along its land borders. During this time, China’s national security was focused on maintaining a large, land-based People’s Liberation Army (PLA), with infrequent attention to naval power.
China today is still largely a continental land power. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, China found itself with 14 contiguous neighbors, many ambivalent toward the People’s Republic. Domestically, around two-thirds of the Chinese population live in the interior, though much of the nation’s economic activity occurs along the coast. This dichotomy has the potential to stir traditional instability, and Chinese leaders spend a lot of their time and effort emphasizing the importance of the interior. The response to the global financial crisis was to rapidly increase infrastructure spending in the interior, and enhance rail connectivity toward western China. The Belt and Road initiative (BRI) continued that continentalist strategy by seeking to redirect attention from domestic socio-economic gaps to economic opportunities across the borders to the west and south.
China as a Maritime Power
China’s rapid economic rise from the mid-1990s created a new pressure point on the Chinese system. For much of China’s history, the country was largely self-sufficient, so long as it didn’t mismanage its resources. But economic growth increasingly linked China into extended supply chains, for raw materials and for overseas markets. With most outward-focused economic activity taking place along the coast or along rivers connected to the coast, China’s international trade was largely by sea, and vulnerable to the key maritime chokepoint of the Strait of Malacca. Rising competition with the United States reinforced China’s trade risk, with U.S. allies or partners forming a crescent surrounding the Chinese coast, from South Korea and Japan through the Philippines and down through Southeast Asia and Australia.
For China, there were three options: 1) Accept U.S. control of the seas, as most other nations did; 2) Find alternative routes to reduce its vulnerability to the chokepoints along its maritime frontier, or 3) Build a naval capability that could secure its supply chains throughout the region and beyond. China chose the latter two, one through the BRI and the other via the rapid expansion of the PLA navy, coupled with air and sea defense missiles and territorial assertions in the South China Sea. By the late 1990s, China was building bases and airstrips on contested reefs and rocks in the South China Sea. And in early 2001, tensions rose amid the Hainan Island Incident. While China backed off at the time, due both to its own recognized weaknesses and the U.S. shift in attention to the war against terrorism, Beijing redoubled its shipbuilding efforts.
China’s navy now outmatches the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force and has more battle force ships than the United States (though in tonnage, the U.S. Navy’s vessels still far outweigh those of the PLA Navy). Combined, these developments have reshaped the balance of naval power in the Western Pacific. In addition, China has significantly expanded its coast guard and other coastal defense forces, revived and expanded several airfields and small bases on artificial islands built on disputed reefs in the South China Sea, and has fielded two aircraft carriers, with another under construction and several more planned.
While China’s naval buildup focused initially on quantity, it has shifted in recent years to quality, testing numerous versions of ships before choosing preferred platforms, and coming close to its peer competitors in several areas of key naval technologies. China has tested its ability to operate for extended periods of time far from home, taking advantage of anti-piracy operations off the coast of Africa to provide real-world training for its crews and establishing a base in Djibouti. The PLA navy does remain behind in some aspects, including anti-submarine warfare and multi-domain naval operations. It also has no culture of carrier battle group operations, and has not been tested in real combat experience since the 1970s. But Beijing has gone a long way to build a modern and professional navy that by many accounts can now outcompete the U.S. Navy in the enclosed waters of the South China Sea.
China continues to seek to shape the maritime environment within the so-called first island chain, and has regularly pushed beyond into the Indian Ocean, the South Pacific and more recently into the Arctic, though the latter still primarily with its civilian fleet. China’s future shipbuilding capacity appears robust, while that of Japan and the United States is curtailed by budgetary concerns and shifting priorities.
China as an Amphibian Power
China’s naval build-up has been rapid, facilitated by the centralized nature of the government and economy. And this maritime focus has paralleled China’s landward infrastructure and trade push along its periphery, reflecting both China’s overall economic strength and its stated intent to take its place among the chief powers of the world system. But as with past rising powers and empires, China faces challenges both from the status quo power, the United States, and from its many neighbors. China’s proclaimed pursuit of “win-win” solutions as it expands its economic, political and military influence will only serve it for so long before the attendant imbalances in power lead to resistance — and in many places, that is already happening.
China’s dual challenges with managing its continental interests and its newer maritime priorities have historical precedence in other rising powers. In his 1890 book, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, American naval scholar and strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan discusses how France consistently struggled with the economic and security costs of seeking to dominate the European continent and maintain a robust navy to counter British maritime power.
At the time, Mahan sought to stir the United States to a global maritime role, expounding on the way British sea power shaped national strength. Germany, in both World Wars, also found itself torn between its continental and maritime priorities. Both were important to secure German power, but each also required a unique strategy with very different resources and key geographies. During the Cold War, the United States used the geographically constrained Soviet sea access to hem in the country, while also exploiting its long land borders in the strategy of containment.
With the pressures and opportunities of both a continental and maritime power, China faces an amphibian’s dilemma, as the characteristics best suited for life at sea and life at land may not always prove complementary.
Similarly, for China, neighboring countries represent both an opportunity for economic and strategic gain, and a vulnerability to China’s national security. Beijing must ensure that its borders remain secure, that regional problems in places like Afghanistan do not interfere with Chinese supply lines through Central and South Asia or spill over into western China, and find ways to reduce the options for the United States to solidify allies and partners around the Chinese periphery. China must also do this at sea to secure its dominant position in the enclosed seas of Asia, as well as regional territorial competitions and undermine U.S. maritime coalitions, while also building out a network of port and resupply agreements along the length of its supply lines.
The U.S. emergence as a global naval power in the 20th Century occurred only after the United States had largely secured its continental position, and was left with only two land neighbors. China’s maritime emergence is happening while it is still seeking to secure its continental position through infrastructure and trade, but this is still a work in progress. Yet if it could, through a combination of economic, political and security arrangements, China would represent the new heartland power envisioned by British geographer Sir Halford J. Mackinder. As early as his 1904 paper defining the Heartland, Mackinder noted that China could at some future point fill this role as a nation capable of uniting the resource base and manpower of Europe, Asia and Africa and then turning its focus to the seas, where it would overwhelm the international maritime order. In his 1944 book titled The Geography of the Peace, American strategist Nicholas Spykman also noted that the “dominant power in the Far East will undoubtedly be China, providing she achieves real unification and provided that Japan’s military power is completely destroyed.”
Making the Leap
Continental powers must deal with managing governance over large territories, balance the differing interests of numerous
neighbors, ensure unity among a diversity of domestic ethnic regions, and shoulder the higher cost of less efficient transport across land. Maritime powers are driven by commerce and the need to both ensure the continuity of long supply lines far from the core national support base, as well as engage in international intercourse that highlights differing social and economic norms from a continental power. But an amphibious nation must manage both the complexities of a continental empire and the challenges of a maritime power.
A key question, then, for understanding the geography of the 21st century is whether China will be able to overcome the amphibian’s dilemma, and emerge as equally formidable both on land and at sea.
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Huawei goes it alone. Chinese telecom giant Huawei announced Thursday that its smartphones will run on its own operating system, HarmonyOS, beginning next year. This is in response to U.S. sanctions blocking sales of U.S. intellectual property to the company, forcing it to release smartphones without a licensed version of Google’s Android operating system.
But while developing a native OS so quickly is a noteworthy achievement for Huawei – and potentially a cautionary tale about how sanctions can inadvertently lead to the creation of foreign workarounds – replacing Google with what will almost certainly be an inferior product (for example, customers won’t have access to apps on the Google Play store) is bound to hamper Huawei smartphone sales in Europe and elsewhere in Asia. This will deprive the company of much-needed revenues at a time when its network infrastructure gear is being either partially or fully banned in a number of Western countries.
Even more problematic for Huawei is the fact that new U.S. sanctions attempting to deprive the company of critical supplies, particularly semiconductors, are set to come into effect next week – and Huawei’s most important suppliers are expected to comply. The world’s largest manufacturer of advanced microchips, Taiwan’s TSMC, has already said it would stop sales to Huawei and other sanctioned Chinese firms this month. Meanwhile, South Korean chipmakers and display manufacturers, namely Samsung, LG and Sk Hynix, filed pro forma requests with the U.S. Commerce Department to continue doing business with the Chinese giant, but are reportedly planning to halt sales. And while Chinese homegrown chipmakers like SMIC and others are racing – with ample state support – to make up the looming microchip shortfall, they’re widely reported to be falling short. By most accounts, Huawei is expected to start exhausting its supply of certain key microchips within the next year.
Rumors that the U.S. will add SMIC and other Chinese chipmakers to its blacklist won’t help their cause. Of course, as we’ve noted, success in the U.S. campaign against Huawei won’t be cost-free either for the U.S. or its allies. The loss of sales to Huawei is expected to cost suppliers in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea more than $26 billion annually.
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September 28, 2020 View On Website
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Can China Still Export Its People’s War?
Dusting off Mao’s Cold War playbook won’t help Beijing.
By: Phillip Orchard
Earlier this summer, as the Indian government scrambled to curry support both at home and abroad for its bare-knuckle standoff against China in the Himalayas, it began reviving another unrelated longstanding grievance with Beijing: China’s alleged covert support for Maoist rebels in restive parts of northeastern India. Among other recent incidents, according to New Delhi, China deserved blame for a deadly attack on security forces in June by far-left separatist groups in Manipur state, which borders Myanmar. In July, ahead of the Myanmar government’s latest long-odds attempt to broker peace with the alphabet soup of ethnic separatist groups ringing the country, the powerful chief of the Myanmar military called out China for arming some of the most powerful rebel groups. Two weeks ago, Indian media, citing sources in both the Indian and Myanmar governments, reported that China has been smuggling arms to various insurgent groups in the region through a network of militants along the Myanmar-Bangladesh border. Among other goals, according to the sources, Beijing was seeking to derail Indian-backed infrastructure projects in Myanmar that ostensibly would compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
These sorts of developments – combined with warnings from the U.S. and some of its friends (including India) that Beijing is using Chinese apps like TikTok and college student groups to spread communist ideology in the West – certainly make it sound like the Cold War is rising from the grave. And China may indeed have increasing cause to dust off its Mao-era playbooks for waging proxy wars and stoking ideological struggle abroad. The country, after all, is in quite a strategic fix as outside powers grow ever-warier of its rise and ambitions. It’ll need every tool available to keep its adversaries divided, preoccupied and leery of confrontation. The fractured geography of South and Southeast Asia gives it numerous internal cleavages in strategically important states on its periphery to try to exploit.
In truth, though, outside of a couple of areas in its periphery where its covert influence operations have never stopped, Beijing is neither capable of nor particularly interested in playing a global, U.S.-Soviet-style covert destabilization game. Nor would it realistically have any hope that the modern Communist Party’s ideology could cultivate a substantial base of supporters, much less inspire other countries’ masses to remake their governments in Beijing’s image. But its new weapons of influence are arguably far more potent and better-suited for the hostile environment it’s facing today than Maoism ever was.
Little Red Books for Everyone
Under Mao, exporting revolution was a core part of Chinese strategy. With the country war-torn, preoccupied with reclaiming its buffer states and perpetually dealing with internal crises of its own making, it couldn’t afford to do much in the way of providing substantial material support to like-minded groups in distant proxy conflicts on the scale of the Soviets and the Americans. To the extent it did get its hands dirty, it was typically in places where it feared either spillover across its border or occupation by a foreign military power – e.g., Indochina and Korea. It also occasionally provided limited amounts of arms, financial assistance and training to sympathetic militant movements farther abroad, but never on a scale needed to truly tip the balance of power.
Mostly, though, China leaned on Maoist ideology as a way to cultivate foreign support. And it was a powerful tool indeed. The beauty of Maoism is its ability to mean whatever any particular class struggle-based political movement needs it to mean. It is not a particularly rigid or coherent doctrine or blueprint for seizing and wielding power so much as a loose, sometimes self-contradictory collection of sayings, ideas and diagnoses of social ills. But what this sacrifices in intellectual rigor it more than makes up for in mutability. It provides a neat framework for understanding power structures and social discontent, plus organizing principles that can be incorporated easily into other ideologies. Elements of Maoism, for example, can be seen in an unlikely range of social movements, including nominally religious ones like the Taliban, the Islamic State and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Still, Mao’s ideological reach rarely had much effect on China’s strategic position. It did not, for example, prove capable of eradicating deeper geostrategic tensions with Moscow, Hanoi or even Pyongyang. Beijing was never able to wrest control of the global communist movement from Moscow amid the Sino-Soviet split in the 1950s and 1960s, and most communist countries fell firmly in the Soviet sphere as a result – including those in China’s backyard. Maoist successes in places like Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge and to a much lesser extent Indonesia were relatively short-lived, ultimately ushering in hostile governments and a long-standing wariness of Chinese interference.
Thus, almost as soon as Mao was gone, Deng Xiaoping set about implementing a dramatic reorientation of China around principles that would resonate in just about any capital: getting rich and keeping enemies at bay through traditional realist strategic maneuvering. And this meant facilitating a rapprochement with the West, particularly the U.S., which meant China couldn’t be seen as aiding Soviet aims by exporting revolution. Maoism was still emphasized at home, of course – or at least the principles Deng thought would cement party rule were emphasized. But Beijing largely shut down Mao-era efforts to foment class struggle and support like-minded militant groups abroad.
Game’s the Same, Just Got Less Fierce
China has stuck with this approach ever since, albeit with a few notable exceptions – none of which were driven by ideological affinity. It continued to support the Khmer Rouge even after it was driven from the capital, for example, but this was a strategic move in coordination with the U.S. aimed mainly at countering Soviet-backed Vietnam. Since China still felt compelled in 1979 to invade Vietnam, where Chinese forces performed poorly, and since it cemented Vietnamese influence in Phnom Penh for a generation, one could argue this backfired. Backing an ousted regime that killed off 20 percent of its population in just four years is not exactly a great way to engender public goodwill or position yourself as a long-term friend to regional governments.
Another exception is in Myanmar, where well-armed rebel groups in the country’s north and northeast have long taken advantage of borders with China (and, to a lesser extent, Thailand) to raise funds, sell contraband, procure weapons, flee attacks and so forth. The strongest of these groups, the United Wa State Army, grew out of the armed wing of the Communist Party of Burma, which had received substantial Chinese support in the 1950s as Mao sought to stamp out a fledgling insurgency being organized by U.S.-backed remnants of the Kuomintang in Shan state. Since then, the UWSA has grown into one of the world’s most powerful drug trafficking organizations. While it’s believed to have begun sourcing most of its arms from China about two decades ago, Beijing’s relationship with the group is uneasy, at best. China isn’t particularly thrilled to have such a group corrupting officials and moving narcotics across its border – particularly one that’s proved strong and independent-minded enough to occasionally frustrate Beijing’s moves to use it to gain leverage over Naypyitaw. And it's an open question just how much of the weapons and financial support that it gets from China is actually sanctioned by Beijing. Nonetheless, to keep Myanmar from moving too close to India or the West, Beijing has been keen to position itself as an indispensable power broker in the interminable peace process between Naypyitaw and the rebel groups. Since nearly all of the major ethnic armies in Myanmar rely on UWSA support to some extent (the UWSA was named in the aforementioned Indian reports about Chinese-backed arms smuggling networks), China cannot afford to shun the group.
Finally, there’s India, which credibly accuses China of providing safe haven to prominent Naxalite leaders and giving them free rein to raise support and facilitate arms flows into India through largely ungoverned spaces in Myanmar, Bangladesh and northeast India. Chinese leaders have tacitly admitted to this by making the case that, since India hosts the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan exiles – even incorporating Tibetans into Indian forces in the Himalayas – fair is fair. Either way, the various separatist groups (some of them Maoist) allegedly receiving Chinese support are at most a perpetual irritant to New Delhi and a modest drain on military resources that could ostensibly be redirected into something more important, like naval development. They pose little risk of fundamentally destabilizing the Indian core or undermining Indian control over territory where it actually fears Chinese incursion, such as the Siliguri Corridor. China stands to gain relatively little leverage from supporting them, especially compared to its far more lucrative investment in India’s chief source of concern: Pakistan.
Not Your Father's Cold War
Otherwise, there’s little evidence of much Chinese support for opposition political movements in the region, particularly violent ones. Not that Beijing would be short of opportunities to back such movements if it wanted. The fractured geography of South and Southeast Asia, along with the extreme levels of social disruption and inequality that have come with the globalization boom, makes the region awash with ethnic and demographic fault lines.
Consider the Philippines. The archipelagic country, which functions as something of a gatekeeper to vital sea lanes to the Western Pacific, presents perhaps the foremost strategic problem for China. Naturally, China is desperate to pull the U.S. treaty ally into its camp, or at minimum keep it from allowing the U.S. or another hostile power to set up naval or missile bases there that could be used to impose a blockade on China. The Philippines also just happens to be home to a dizzying array of rebel groups, including the New People’s Army, proud facilitators of the world’s longest-running communist insurgency. Yet, such groups do not appear to have played any part in China’s ongoing efforts to put the squeeze on Manila.
Its approach to the Philippines illustrates quite a bit about what China actually needs from such states and what tools it thinks might actually be effective. For one, it tells us that Beijing doesn’t think there would be much return on investment from supporting such groups. This is, in part, because few realistically have the potential to be much more than an irritant to their governments. The threat posed to Naypyitaw by the United Wa State Army and the other rebel groups in Myanmar is rare, in other words. The New People’s Army, for example, is considered a spent force, having effectively devolved into a decentralized collection of local criminal syndicates rather than something capable of mobilizing the Philippine masses against Manila. Moreover, the strongest militant groups in the Philippines, as in much of South and Southeast Asia, are Islamist. Beijing fears anything that would strengthen such groups to the point where they could funnel support to ethnic Uighur militants in Xinjiang and along China’s western borders.
For another, Beijing’s handling of the Philippines tells us that China realizes its ideology no longer has mass appeal. To be sure, with inequality and social disruption soaring across the globe, the environment is as receptive as ever to an ideology focused on class struggle. But the Communist Party of China can no longer take advantage of this, because it can’t really hide the fact that it's turning China into an imperialist, wealth-obsessed autocracy treating its neighbors as little more than commodity depots. Even the New People’s Army’s parent political organization, the Movement for National Democracy, has been harshly critical of the Duterte administration’s embrace of Beijing’s neocolonialism. To the extent that Chinese messaging and disinformation operations can be at least modestly successful, watch a couple of tactics in particular: One is targeting overseas ethnic Chinese communities with nationalist narratives. Another is using its growing control over information technologies to censor unflattering news about China, tout Chinese aims as benevolent and projects like the Belt and Road Initiative as mutually beneficial, and sow discontent with Chinese adversaries. (Consider, for example, the way Beijing flooded social media channels overseas with conspiracy theories about the U.S. and COVID-19.)
Finally, it tells us that China thinks the risks of openly attempting to foment rebellion in its periphery far outweigh the potential rewards. Economically, what China needs is open markets for its manufactured goods and emerging technologies, steady supplies of commodities and receptiveness to Chinese investment. Militarily, China needs allies, which at present are very few. But at minimum, it needs to keep regional states on the sidelines of its disputes with major outside powers. Diplomatically, it needs to beat back deep-rooted regional suspicions that China’s rise will be inherently incompatible with peace and stability and persuade its neighbors that the best bet for a prosperous future is a China-centric regional order. Attempting to destabilize its neighbors, in most cases, would quite likely only undermine these aims, driving them to seek out outside military support, generating suspicion of Chinese technologies and investment, and raising the political risks for regional leaders of cozying up to Beijing. The few attempts it has made in recent years at putting its thumb on the scale of another country’s political landscape have backfired, underscoring the reality that pinning one’s geopolitical strategy on any particular regime makes for a flimsy strategy.
For Beijing, then, the best course is likely to continue leaning heavily on the more traditional tools of statecraft it has already been wielding with some efficacy. This means cultivating economic dependencies through investment and market access. It means deepening inter-elite financial ties to ensure pro-China sympathies across countries’ political spectra – something bearing abundant fruit in the Philippines and elsewhere. It means tilting the military balance of power with regional states ever more in its favor, declaring that might makes right in territorial disputes, and exposing the limits of America’s interest in coming to their defense. It means providing authoritarian-minded regimes in the region with the technological tools and financial resources to cement their control and shield themselves from public discontent. In truth, it means making itself an indispensable partner in helping governments put down rebellions – as it did in Nepal in the mid-2000s, when it helped arm the government in its fight against Maoist rebels.
Ultimately, these efforts may not be enough to win long-term friends to the extent needed to establish the new regional order it craves. But Beijing has already succeeded in making regional states, even some powerful ones, exceedingly reluctant to bandwagon against China in meaningful ways. No one in the region wants a new cold war, but least of all China. Because if China finds itself having to fight in the manner the last one was waged, it’ll quite likely already have lost.
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Quad momentum. The top diplomats of the four members of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Japan, India, Australia and the United States) will meet in Tokyo next week. Normally, these sorts of summits are a dime a dozen. But until recently, the Quad was at most an occasional talk shop for midlevel diplomats and largely focused on making vague promises for economic cooperation – reflecting the wariness of Australia and India, in particular, of antagonizing China by allowing the Quad to grow into a more formalized military coalition. In this light, the urgency of the diplomats to meet – in person, no less – to discuss bringing Australia into the annual India-led Malabar naval exercises illustrates a gradual weakening of such concerns.
China fears being ganged up on by a united front of foreign powers, and so naturally it is launching a charm offensive targeting Japan. This reflects another shift. Among the four members, Japan has been perhaps the keenest to give the grouping some actual muscle. If Beijing thinks Tokyo is now its best bet for undermining Quad momentum, it illustrates just how much damage Beijing has done to its ties with Canberra and New Delhi over the past year.
As always, watch what they do more than what they say – starting with the Malabar drills. Another key factor in the Quad’s future is the ability of the non-U.S. members to develop the military capabilities needed to make the grouping less dependent on the United States. Notably, Japan on Wednesday announced a record increase in its defense budget.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/international-coalition-backs-embattled-expert-on-chinese-foreign-influence-operations/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202020-10-09&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart
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Pew: World is seeing the China threat even if Biden and Harris do not.
(https://ci4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/1AkK78sl4qX_nnWuEeBJmZ_Af1tQPCx6yyPjuJX60X6E-NSRakJcisgI-HPjcg4N5cFSDIg9_dw9PlsaIZt9-MwyD4cH80oWhPwUItuyhAhpMALOCg9YgEKZcxShRje3sSaetoaZH3DuBR-pgPPeaKHKFKiMag=s0-d-e1-ft#https://mcusercontent.com/dc8d30edd7976d2ddf9c2bf96/images/48f2f214-4fdb-49ce-a258-97e34297c265.jpg)
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Xi Jinping’s China did this [Times of Israel, link below]
The corrupt, criminal regime wasted 40 days blocking information while it crushed domestic dissent and ensured COVID-19 would become a global pandemic
There is authoritative and compelling evidence — including a study from the University of Southampton — that if interventions in China had been conducted three weeks earlier, transmission of COVID-19 could have been reduced by 95 percent.
For 40 days, President Xi Jinping’s CPC concealed, destroyed, falsified, and fabricated information about the rampant spread of COVID-19 through its state-sanctioned massive surveillance and suppression of data; its misrepresentation of information; its silencing and criminalizing of its dissent; and its disappearance of its whistleblowers.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/criminality-and-corruption-reign-in-xi-pings-china/#gs.g3g2ma
In late December 2019, Dr. Ai Fen, director of the Emergency Department at the Central Hospital of Wuhan — “The Whistle-Giver” — disseminated information about COVID-19 to several doctors, one of whom was Dr. Li Wenliang, and eight of whom were later arrested. Dr. Ai has recently disappeared.
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Dr. Ai also detailed efforts to silence her in a story titled, “The one who supplied the whistle,” published in China’s People (Renwu) magazine in March. The article has since been removed.
On January 1, 2020, Dr. Li Wenliang — the “hero” and “awakener” — was reprimanded for spreading rumors, and was summoned to sign a statement accusing him of making false statements that disturbed the public order. Seven other people were arrested on similar charges. Their fate is still unknown.
On January 4, 2020, Dr. Ho Pak Leung — president of the University of Hong Kong’s Centre for Infection — indicated that it was highly probable that COVID-19 spread from human-to-human, and urged the implementation of a strict monitoring system.
For weeks, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission declared that preliminary investigations did not show any clear evidence of human-to-human transmission.
On January 14, 2020, the WHO reaffirmed China’s statement, and on January 22, 2020, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus praised the CPC’s handling of the outbreak, commending China’s Minister of Health for his cooperation, and President Xi and Premier Li for their invaluable leadership and intervention.
On January 23, 2020, Chinese authorities announced their first steps to quarantine Wuhan. By then, it was too late. Millions of people had already visited Wuhan and left during the Chinese New Year, and a significant number of Chinese citizens had traveled overseas as asymptomatic carriers.
On February 23, 2020, Ren Zhiqiang — former real estate tycoon and longstanding critic of the CPC — wrote in an essay that he “saw not an emperor standing there exhibiting his ‘new clothes,’ but a clown stripped naked who insisted he continue being emperor.” He spoke of a “crisis of governance” and the strict limits on free speech, which had magnified the COVID-19 epidemic. He has also gone missing, and it has recently been reported that the CPC has opened an investigation against him.
The world would have been more prepared and able to combat COVID-19 had it not been for President Xi’s authoritarian regime’s widespread and systematic pattern of sanitizing the massive domestic repression of its people.
Forty days of silence and suppression cost Italy — the epicenter of Europe’s COVID-19 pandemic — a death toll of 12%, more than double that of China’s, followed by Spain with a fatality rate of 9%. As we write, the United States — whose presidential leadership has been wanting — has become the pandemic’s new epicenter, and there is heightened concern about what could become of developing countries like India, and South Africa’s immunosuppressed population of over 10 million.
While global infections continue to surge relentlessly upwards, China — ironically — is now considered safer than the majority of countries. The South Korean model — where it pioneered drive-through COVID-19 testing centers collecting swabs from over 15,000 people a day, and quarantining the infected immediately thereafter — is one of the only precedents and case studies to date, along with China, that significantly reduced the number of infected people and fatalities.
Attention should also be drawn to the CPC’s massive surveillance and suppression of data juxtaposed with its misrepresentation of information. China’s big data collection — approximately 200 million CCTV cameras — not only precipitated the highest tech epidemic control ever attempted by the CPC, but also underpinned the salience of its repression.
The CPC’s infodemic — in addition to its intense spinning of solidarity on social media and its framing of a “people’s war against the virus” — was both a deceitful and farcical illusion of a coming together in China. The extent of the CPC’s self-promotion and its portrayal of President Xi as a hero ready to save the world — while making Western democracies look grossly incompetent — is as shameful as it is duplicitous.
In a word, President Xi’s government has exacerbated the world’s COVID-19 health and systemic crises, which has paved the way for one of the greatest humanitarian crises in history.
The world is watching. People in China no longer stand alone. Many are no longer fearful. They have already started publishing firsthand accounts of the CPC’s orchestrated cover-ups and monumental failures, revealing the rotten core of Chinese governance.
In defending the struggle for democracy and human rights in China, the international community must stand in solidarity with the people of China in seeking to unmask the CPC’s criminality, corruption, and impunity.
The community of democracies must undertake the necessary legal initiatives — be they international tort actions as authorized by treaty law, or the utilization of international bodies, like the International Court of Justice — to underpin the courage and commitment of China’s human rights defenders. This is what justice and accountability is all about.
—
Irwin Cotler is the Chair of the Raoul Centre for Human Rights, Emeritus Professor of Law at McGill University, and former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada.
Judith Abitan is the Executive Director of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, and a Human Rights Advocate.
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Huawei and the Chinese Communist Party's War for Information Dominance
https://strategypage.com/on_point/2020101594758.aspx#foo
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Nokia, Ericsson and Samsung are superior providers, but they cannot compete with a nation-state combining trade, business, financial, diplomatic, media and spy powers to support Huawei's operations.
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America's diplomatic and legal attack on Huawei is advancing. Three Canadian 5G providers -- including Bell Canada -- will not use its equipment. In July, Britain decided to ban and remove Huawei products from its 5G networks. Alas, the ban takes effect in 2021, and operators have until 2027 to remove installed Huawei equipment.
Though German Chancellor Angela Merkel opposes banning Huawei outright, German legislators intend to pass an information technology security law that restricts high-risk vendors. Telefonica Deutschland has decided its new 5G network will use Ericsson because "the Swedish supplier would safeguard the security" of its 5G services.
That is a small step toward defeating the [Chinese Communist Party].
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https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/chinas-president-jinping-to-troops-focus-on-preparing-for-war/
eventually they will invade taiwan
unless Joe can convince them otherwise with his good guy personality
Gilder of course would say eventually China will be a Christian nation (no kidding - that is what he claims )
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Winning.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3106358/banning-huawei-and-zte-sweden-calls-china-national-security-threat
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Alliances forming.
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/10/06/unfavorable-views-of-china-reach-historic-highs-in-many-countries/
Pew Report: Unfavorable Views of China Reach Historic Highs in Many Countries
10/20/2020, 10:04:46 PM · by SeekAndFind · 11 replies
Pew Research ^ | 10/11/2020 | BY LAURA SILVER, KAT DEVLIN AND CHRISTINE HUANG
Views of China have grown more negative in recent years across many advanced economies, and unfavorable opinion has soared over the past year, a new 14-country Pew Research Center survey shows. Today, a majority in each of the surveyed countries has an unfavorable opinion of China. And in Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United States, South Korea, Spain and Canada, negative views have reached their highest points since the Center began polling on this topic more than a decade ago. Negative views of China increased most in Australia, where 81% now say they see the country unfavorably.
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hina Threatens Australia Because That’s All It Can Do
Beijing has a lot of leverage over countries that rely on it for trade, but it’s hard to translate that into anything more meaningful.
By Phillip Orchard -June 10, 2020
As cases of COVID-19 resurge elsewhere in the world, it’s worth remembering that Australia whipped the coronavirus into submission with relative ease, reducing the number of new daily cases to single digits by mid-April. Yet, the pandemic has left Australia with an acute case of economic and diplomatic whiplash anyway, not because of its public health shortcomings but because of its uneasy codependence with China. The country’s astonishing 29-year run of economic growth is set to come to an abrupt end, thanks in part to flagging demand from China, whose soaring commodities purchases helped keep Australia out of a recession after 2008. And Beijing, upset with Canberra over (among other seemingly trivial matters) its pro forma support for an international investigation into the origins of the virus and Taiwanese membership in the World Health Organization, is going the extra mile to ensure Australia doesn’t take Chinese buyers for granted. Over the past month, China has halted shipments of Australian beef, imposed an 80 percent tariff on Australian barley, warned of consumer boycotts targeting Australian winemakers and dairy farmers, and urged the more than 200,000 Chinese university students in Australia to consider studying elsewhere. Beijing, in other words, is becoming less [
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A string of defaults by Chinese state-owned companies has sent shockwaves across the world’s second-largest credit market.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-23/these-aaa-rated-chinese-bonds-are-tumbling-as-default-fears-grow?sref=nXmOg68r
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November 24, 2020
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China Stares Down a Financial Reckoning
Beijing thinks the pandemic illustrated the superiority of its approach to financial stability.
By: Phillip Orchard
One has to wonder what Jack Ma was thinking when, in a speech in Shanghai in late October, the Alibaba and Ant Group founder ripped into overzealous Chinese regulators, accusing them of having a “pawnshop mentality” and stifling innovation. Beijing promptly suspended Ant Group’s upcoming initial public offering, which was expected to be the largest in history, costing Ma personally an estimated $3 billion. Days later, Beijing unveiled sweeping new anti-monopoly legislation that will hit much of Ma’s sprawling empire.
That Ma’s comments struck a nerve was not surprising. As Chinese tech conglomerates like Ant Group have rapidly expanded into fintech and financial services, they’ve effectively become lightly regulated banks. And Chinese President Xi Jinping’s administration is obsessed with curbing financial risk. Though Beijing needs these companies’ innovations to get liquidity to corners of the economy that the Chinese banking system struggles to service, these inevitably make it more difficult to stave off a cascading financial crisis. When forced to choose between dynamism and stability, Beijing almost always chooses the latter.
Curiously, though, in the weeks that followed Ma’s comments, Beijing mostly sat on its hands when state-owned enterprises (SOEs) across multiple sectors began publicly announcing defaults on corporate bond obligations. Defaults by Chinese state-backed firms are exceedingly rare, given their VIP access to state credit. Thus, any hints that SOEs are about to default, or state banks about to fail, tends to push Chinese financial markets to the brink of panic. This came a week after Xi had praised Chinese SOEs as proving themselves even more reliable than their private counterparts in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, pledging to make them bigger, better and stronger.
The confluence of events speaks volumes about the high-wire path Beijing is walking to stave off a financial reckoning. But it also suggests that Beijing thinks it has found a model of state capitalism that lets it eat its cake and have it too.
The Problems
In 2017, Xi elevated financial stability to the level of national security in terms of the Chinese Communist Party’s priorities. There’s a good reason for this fixation: No country in history has amassed so much debt so quickly as China has without succumbing to a financial meltdown, according to the World Bank. So long as China’s economy was galloping ahead at double-digit growth, with the corporate sector awash in easy profits to paper over inefficiencies and an immature system for pricing risk, the chances of an uncontrollable financial crisis were low. But as the Chinese growth model shifted from one driven by exports and land liberalization to investment, and as gross domestic product growth entered into a long, if gradual, slowdown, the margin for error began to narrow considerably. Things became particularly hairy after the 2008 global financial crisis, when Beijing unleashed a staggering amount of stimulus, effectively giving local governments a blank check, and then found itself incapable of scaling back without sending the entire system into a tailspin.
Since 2017, Xi's administration has attempted to implement a suite of ambitious “de-risking” reforms. These have included overhauling the regulatory apparatus, sending the anti-graft authorities after wayward officials and tycoons, and hammering local and provincial governments and banks to clean up their books and eschew “shadow lending” practices. It also gave the central bank free rein to tinker endlessly with the system in search of an elusive balance between liquidity and control. But this effort has been bedeviled by two chronic problems, both a result of Beijing’s insistence on maintaining a state-centric system.
One is a distorted banking system that’s heavily incentivized to focus on the needs of China’s more than 150,000 SOEs (the bulk of which are owned by provincial and local governments) and projects that banks suspect will be prioritized by the party – and thus guaranteed not to bust – at the expense of everything else. As a result, the system is not particularly good at pricing risk or distributing credit to areas of the economy that don’t have implicit state backing. It’s particularly bad at meeting the needs of households and small and medium-size enterprises, which tend to have scant credit histories or assets available for collateral but which now make up the overwhelming share of employment in China. This forces businesses and cash-strapped local governments to seek funding via shadow lending vehicles (the opacity of which makes Beijing nervous) and households to rely on things like peer-to-peer lending platforms (the volatility of which makes Beijing very nervous as a potential source of social upheaval). It also created an opening for fintech firms like Ant Group to fill the void in consumer-facing finance.
Mapping China's Shadow Banking
(click to enlarge)
All this forces regulators to tread carefully when implementing new de-risking measures. Move too far, too fast, and the private sector may face a credit crunch – as it did in 2018 and 2019, even before the pandemic – and China’s cherished growth may grind to a halt. Move too slow, and household savings – the great stabilizer and safety net of the Chinese economy – may fall away, speculative real estate bubbles may pop, and any number of interlocking fault lines may rupture at once.
The other core problem is moral hazard. Put simply, given Beijing’s existential fear of unemployment and social unrest, lenders and investors understandably just assume that the state will more often than not come to the rescue if things go sideways and pose any degree of systemic risk. Beijing also realizes that if people think that the state is guaranteeing their deposits or investments, and the state doesn't live up to its promise (implicit or otherwise), people are likely to direct their ire not at poorly run banks or companies but at the state itself. Naturally, this encourages all sorts of risky lending and investment activity. This is particularly true with SOEs and state banks. Beijing sees such entities as invaluable tools for soaking up surplus employment and funding or carrying out projects prioritized for social development or diplomatic goals, as well as for brokering factional peace and deepening dependence on the party’s goodwill. It is willing to tolerate a lack of profit and efficiency in the state sector in service of these ulterior goals. Local governments, meanwhile, rely on the state firms they control to get around regulatory constraints and meet employment and growth targets set from above.
Regulators may grouse about the state sector’s profligate ways, but they’ve generally been unwilling to expose it fully to market forces and leave state banks, in particular, on the hook for losses. The handful of times they’ve tried, things have gone badly. The closest China has come to having its own Lehman Brothers moment was in June 2013, for example, when Beijing briefly declined to intervene following a technical default between two small banks. This sent interbank lending rates soaring, grinding lending to a halt and sparking a liquidity crisis that began to spread into the rest of the economy. Beijing quickly backed down, and the merry circus continued.
The Solutions
The past month’s events are just the latest iteration of this push and pull between market and state. But, as is usually the case with China, it’s always difficult to discern whether unusual developments are a sign of Beijing’s weakness or strength. Does the crackdown on tech conglomerates betray a growing fear in Beijing that their growing wealth and control over data and information (things the Communist Party of China wants to monopolize) will translate into political power and rupture China’s historical regional and socioeconomic fault lines? Or is Beijing merely flexing in service of a prudent policy? (Ant Group quickly acquiesced, after all.) Does letting SOEs default suggest that the scale of China’s debt woes is surpassing Beijing’s ability to respond, or has Beijing’s financial de-risking campaign been so successful that it feels it's high time to teach profligate state-owned firms a thing or two about accountability?
In most cases, there’s an element of both. A permanent sense of intertwined crisis and opportunity is the foremost driver of the Communist Party’s behavior. But what’s different this time around is that Beijing appears to truly feel that its measures are working. The pandemic was the ultimate stress test of the Chinese system. And the system by and large has emerged unscathed – even stable enough to risk a market panic by letting SOEs fall on their swords or to risk another liquidity crunch by saddling fintech innovations with new regulations. It’s done this without resorting to 2008-style stimulus. It’s done this while cracking down on Hong Kong despite the risk of scaring off much-needed foreign investment. It’s done this as the focus of U.S. economic pressure on China has shifted from trade to finance.
Bond Defaults by Chinese Corporates
(click to enlarge)
Number of Chinese Zombie Firms
(click to enlarge)
Indeed, Beijing thinks the pandemic, like the 2008 global financial crisis, has in many ways illustrated the superiority of the Chinese approach to financial stability – or at least what Beijing hopes the system will become, with some additional technocratic tweaking, some purging of corrupt elements and regular injections of party ideology to get everyone marching in the same direction. And to be sure, Beijing deserves credit for empowering its regulators to take on painful reforms before the crisis hit and for implementing a countercyclical regulatory system designed to adjust on the fly, tightening and relaxing control as changing conditions demand. It can count real successes in curbing shadow lending and shutting down “zombie enterprises” in a relatively controlled manner. What the system lacks in market incentives to act prudently, Beijing has been able to offset, to an extent, by introducing fear of Xi. Perhaps this is one of the benefits of living in constant fear that an existential crisis is just around the corner – you’re far less likely to get caught flat-footed.
The core contradictions embedded in China’s model remain, though. It’s unlikely to ever embrace a cleansing but potentially destabilizing recession. It’s not about to reduce the role of state banks and enterprises. It’ll remain enormously difficult to weed out moral hazard altogether, and to persuade financial institutions to act against their own self-interest, so long as it sees a state-centric economy essential for party survival. There’s an inevitable trade-off between dynamism and control. Even if this model remains adept at staving off a cataclysmic crisis, a long slowdown will be hard to avoid. In other words, China’s financial reckoning probably can't be avoided forever, but it's likely to look a lot more like Japan’s Lost Decades than what was faced by South Korea and much of Southeast Asia during the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Given what the consequences of the latter would look like in China, it’ll happily make that trade.
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https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3112024/china-gave-covid-19-vaccine-north-koreas-kim-jong-un-us-analyst
China gave Kim Jung Un the vaccine.
Pretty high trust level the other direction. Would you let the PRC give you an injection?
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Australian Bill's Passage Would Turn up the Heat With China
6 MINS READ
Dec 3, 2020 | 21:18 GMT
HIGHLIGHTS
The impending passage of a new law meant to limit Chinese government deals with subnational governments in Australia portends an even greater deterioration in ties....
With Australia-China relations at a low point and diplomatic tensions bleeding into the trade realm, Canberra's impending passage of a new law meant to limit Chinese government deals with subnational governments in Australia shows Canberra's continued resolve to confront China — spelling an even greater deterioration in ties. Australia's Federal Parliament is nearing passage of a controversial new law that would allow the Foreign Ministry to strike down agreements by states, territories, public universities and local governments with foreign governments or government entities. This law, currently the Foreign Relations (State and Territory Arrangements) Bill 2020, was directly motivated by federal government concerns about current and potential subnational-level agreements with the Chinese that could undermine the Commonwealth government's ability to counter Chinese domestic influence.
In contrast to the federal government's policy to keep Australia out of China's Belt and Road Initiative, the Victoria state government has moved forward with several unilateral moves to join the infrastructure initiative. In November 2018, Victoria state government Premier Daniel Andrews signed a nonbinding memorandum of understanding with China to formally join Belt and Road following his 2017 attendance at the Belt and Road forum. Victoria established a working group with plans to release a roadmap on partnership opportunities by mid-2020, but that has yet to materialize.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the "veto" law plans in late 2020, with the bill put before parliament in September after a rushed process. The bill has enjoyed relatively strong bipartisan support, with both the ruling Liberal-National Coalition and opposition Labor Party favoring more federal powers to shape Chinese influence.
Some in the opposition, however, have called for limits to the law to prevent Foreign Ministry overreach. In the Senate, Labor Party members aligned with Greens and crossbench senators to amend the law to include judicial review. The Senate is the weaker body in the Australian system, and the Liberal-National Coalition will now work to garner one more vote in the House of Representatives in hopes of forcing it through without the change.
The new law would increase federal government scrutiny on a host of lower-level agreements as part of an overall hard-line policy toward China. This will augment several new laws put in place in recent years by the federal government to restrict foreign influence in the form of political donations, influence peddling and even investment, using these powers to investigate Chinese journalists, Australian politicians, and investment deals in infrastructure and agriculture.
In terms of the veto law, while Victoria state's Belt and Road memorandum of understanding will be in the crosshairs, Morrison has said over 130 deals with 30 countries could be reviewed. In addition to regional governments, this will open up the possibility that the federal government will strike down deals between universities and Chinese entities such as Confucius Institutes.
Also in 2018, Australia increased restrictions on foreign investment into farmland and the electrical grid in response to Chinese-owned companies gaining ground in these sectors, requiring mandatory reviews by the treasurer, Foreign Investment Review Board and the Department of Home Affairs. This formalized increased scrutiny by the federal treasurer followed a high-profile 2015 deal granting a 99-year lease of the Port of Darwin and a controlling share in the port operator to a Chinese company.
Australia recently used its 2018 National Security Legislation Amendment (Espionage and Foreign Interference) Act for the first time to counter alleged Chinese domestic influence. In November, the government charged a leader in the ethnic Chinese community. In June, authorities reportedly searched the homes of Chinese journalists from state-run Xinhua, China Media Group and China News Service linked to an investigation into a New South Wales politician.
Australia's rapid efforts to pass the veto legislation point toward a long-term, hard-line China policy unlikely to be derailed by ongoing Chinese economic pressure on Canberra. Although Australia-China tensions have been mounting since at least 2017, 2020 has seen them reach new heights with diplomatic spats and Chinese trade restrictions. Like those of the United States, Australia's concerns about China are long-term and strategic. In addition to fears of economic and political influence from China, Australia also fears that China's regional expansion will jeopardize Australian defense by eroding Australia's standing in its near abroad, namely in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. Over the long term, Canberra also fears that China's rise will hinder the ability of the United States, Australia's key ally, to protect Australia in the event of conflict and ensure the free flow of commerce, which is vital to the Australian economy.
Over the course of 2020, China has engaged in increasing restrictions on the import of Australian products, taking advantage of the fact that 33 percent of Australian exports go to China. China has hit out at Australian barley and wine most aggressively, slapping barley with over 80 percent tariffs in May 2020 and in November 2020 hitting many wine exporters with major tariffs as well. It has also put informal bans in place on shipments of copper ore, copper concentrates, lobster, coal, timber and sugar.
To a degree, however, China has remained restrained in its trade pressure on Australia. An all-out trade war could significantly hamper Australian growth, but China's actions have fallen short of that. While barley and wine are pain points for key Australian regions and these tariffs have a longer shelf life, the informal ban on Australian exports may not be sustained in the long term as Beijing's appetite for these commodities rebounds from the COVID-19 pandemic. Most notably, China has avoided limitations on Australian iron ore exports, which are essential to Canberra and account for 40 percent of all commodity exports.
Given its need to link into the lucrative and growing Chinese market, however, Australia will pursue a balanced foreign policy. Even as it works to gain powers to counter Chinese influence, it will also work to deepen trade links with China and the rest of the region, something the recent completion of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership confirms. At the same time, Australia will cooperate with U.S.-led initiatives to counter China as it has done previously by joining the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, banning Huawei from its 5G network and criticizing China's COVID-19 response, South China Sea expansion, and conduct in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.
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https://justthenews.com/world/asia/pro-democracy-media-magnate-jimmy-lai-charged-under-national-security-law-hong-kong?utm_source=justthenews.com&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=external-news-aggregators
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It has not taken long for the wheels to come off the Belt and Road Initiative. As recently as May 2017, China’s leader Xi Jinping stood in Beijing before a hall of nearly 30 heads of state and delegates from over 130 countries and proclaimed “a project of the century”. This was not hyperbole. China has promised to spend about $1 trillion on building infrastructure in mainly developing countries around the world — and finance almost all of this through its own financial institutions. Adjusted for inflation, this total was roughly seven times what the US spent through the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after the second world war, according to Jonathan Hillman, author of The Emperor’s New Road. But according to data published this week, reality is deviating sharply from Mr Xi’s script. What was conceived as the world’s biggest development program is unravelling into what could become China’s first overseas debt crisis. Lending by the Chinese financial institutions that drive the Belt and Road, along with bilateral support to governments, has fallen off a cliff, and Beijing finds itself mired in debt renegotiations with a host of countries. (via Financial Times, Yale University Press)
https://www.ft.com/content/d9bd8059-d05c-4e6f-968b-1672241ec1f6
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https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/12/breaking-list-communist-party-members-around-world-leaked-reported-australia-news-will-released-today/
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Let's be sure to follow this.
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https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6215946537001
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-huge-data-leak-exposes-chinese-communist-party-members-embedded-in-western-companies-and-governments?fbclid=IwAR2rEvcxdDhJKF4vXiIfR22QvVcOegmW08wZrIJd8StcPOg23jEVc2xdwjs
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He has an article at ForeignAffairs.org I'm not able to pull up.. this has the gist of it.
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Politico.com
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/24/robert-obrien-xi-jinping-china-stalin-338338
Robert O’Brien, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, equated Chinese President Xi Jinping to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin on Wednesday in an aggressive speech that lambasted China for what he described as a malevolent role in world affairs.
“The Chinese Communist Party is Marxist-Leninist,” he said. “The party General Secretary Xi Jinping sees himself as Josef Stalin’s successor.”
O’Brien faulted both political parties for underestimating the threat from China for decades and not seeing that the Chinese government is aiming to “remake the world” in its image. American policymakers were wrong, he said, to assume that as China developed economically, it would eventually democratize and pursue liberalization. Instead, he argued that the opposite has occurred: China has only become more wedded to its communist ideology.
“We could not have been more wrong — and this miscalculation was the greatest failure of American foreign policy since the 1930s,” he said.
Against the backdrop of a new book by his predecessor John Bolton alleging that Trump said he didn’t care about the Tiananmen Square crackdown and didn’t want a White House statement commemorating the 30th anniversary of the 1989 massacre, O’Brien said in his speech: “We downplayed China’s gross human rights abuses, including Tiananmen Square.”
The national security adviser’s remarks are the first in a series of speeches senior Trump administration officials are making about China during the next few weeks. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray will also address the topic.
His speech, delivered in the swing state of Arizona, where Trump trails Joe Biden in the polls, also comes as Republicans seek to portray the former vice president as soft on China. That effort has been undercut by the accusation in Bolton’s book that Trump explicitly asked Xi for help in winning reelection, a charge the president’s team has denied.
O’Brien’s sweeping indictment of the Chinese government is the latest example of the president’s aides going well beyond their boss in casting China as a comprehensive danger to the United States. Trump has tended to describe the threat of China in narrower economic terms as he seeks to remedy what he says are Beijing’s unfair trade practices.
Deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who covered China, and the National Security Council's Asia team helped write the speech, which has been in the works for weeks, according to an administration official. The Chinese Embassy didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on O’Brien’s remarks.
While Trump has often praised Xi as great leader, O’Brien condemned his rule as authoritarian and dangerous. During the first three months of this year, the Chinese government has charged almost 500 Chinese citizens for speaking out about the coronavirus, which in the speech O’Brien called the “Wuhan virus” several times.
Beijing’s malign influence extends deep into American politics and society, O’Brien warned. People in more than a dozen American cities hear “subtle pro-Beijing propaganda” on FM radio stations, he said, recounting the story of how a U.S. soldier and her family in Maryland needed a security detail to protect them from death threats after Chinese disinformation convinced some Americans the soldier had originally brought the coronavirus to Wuhan.
While Bolton’s book, where O’Brien isn’t even mentioned, said that Trump told Xi to proceed with building concentration camps for Uighurs, O’Brien condemned the Chinese government for doing exactly that.
“It locks up millions of Muslim Uighurs and other minorities in reeducation camps where they are subjected to political indoctrination and forced labor, while their children are raised in Party-run orphanages,” he said. “This process annihilates family, religion, culture, language and heritage.”
O’Brien tried to disabuse Americans of the notion that they are outside Beijing’s reach, saying the Chinese Communist Party seeks to “control thought beyond the borders of China” and target and blackmail people to serve the party’s interests.
“This is ‘micro targeting’ is beyond an advertiser’s wildest dreams,” he said. “China, unlike advertisers, will not be stopped by government regulations. The Chinese Communist Party simply wants to know everything about you—just like it knows almost everything about China’s citizens.”
As proof of that, he recounted that the Chinese hacked Anthem insurance to get information on 80 million Americans, hacked the Office of Personnel Management to get data on 20 million American government employees, hacked credit rating agency Equifax and hacked Marriott hotels to get information on millions of guests. A Chinese company in 2016 even bought gay dating app Grindr to get its data before the U.S. government forced the company to divest the app on national security grounds.
O’Brien praised Trump and the administration for taking “decisive action” to counter Beijing by barring Chinese companies closely linked to the government’s national security apparatus, such as telecom giant Huawei, from accessing Americans’ personal data. He also hailed the administration’s moves to enact export and travel restrictions on Chinese government entities, companies and certain officials who are helping repress Uighurs and other minorities.
The State Department has recently cracked down on Chinese journalists in the United States, to which Beijing has responded by ejecting journalists working for American news outlets. O’Brien hinted that more such steps countering China would be coming soon, though he did not specify what or when.
Advertisement
With China moving to sharply curtail Hong Kong’s political autonomy, the Trump administration is in the process of deciding how to adequately respond and how to avoid hurting regular Hong Kong people, who have protested in huge numbers against growing encroachment on their freedom of speech and assembly.
O’Brien emphasized that his criticism of the Chinese government doesn’t extend to regular Chinese.
“We have deep respect and admiration for the Chinese people,” he said. “The United States has a long history of friendship with the Chinese nation. But the Chinese Communist Party does not equal China or her people.”
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Xi Jinping is 2020 Man of the Year
Credit to Mark Stern yesterday for that point. I was in and out of the car when he gave his reasons, but you can imagine.
At the start of 2020, China had its back against the wall. Trump had cornered him on trade, stepped up alliances and America's military position in the region. We were waiting for Xi to finally say no tariffs and an enforceable agreement to stop technology theft and forced technology transfers, and his nemesis President Trump was cruising to reelection against the weakest opponent imaginable.
Meanwhile Xi was sitting on the information of a nation threatening and world threatening health crisis. He conspired with the WHO to keep it quiet while figuring out how to contain it in China while spreading it to the world, and pushing the disinformation campaign that this is all Trump's fault.
Now Xi has exports growing again, economy growing again and his main rivals, US and Europe, in a downward lockdown spiral and his only existential threat, Trump in the US Presidency, looking like a sore loser and headed into retirement.
Man of the Year. Sad state of affairs, understatement.
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To be fair, Steyn has named Joe Biden, Basement Dweller of the Year. No one has achieved more, ever, from their basement.
https://www.steynonline.com/10858/time-basement-dweller-of-the-year
Yesterday's show podcast at the link.
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9063943/Chinas-trade-war-Australia-backfires-country-plagued-blackouts-cold-winter.html
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https://asiatimes.com/2020/12/how-india-could-tweak-china-in-the-south-china-sea/?fbclid=IwAR3AMfhWCH--yKezrluJg0z2wtVbb-Rg8AwJ2o7EjekuQUnL2re39I5cbIM
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/12/the-coming-global-backlash-against-china/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MJ_20201228&utm_term=Jolt-Smart
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The Fate of Trump’s China Tariffs Under Biden
5 MINS READ
Dec 28, 2020 | 16:21 GMT
Containers are seen stacked at a port in Qingdao, China, on Jan. 14, 2020.
Containers are seen stacked at a port in Qingdao, China, on Jan. 14, 2020.
(STR/AFP via Getty Images)
HIGHLIGHTS
The Biden administration will probably maintain many of the existing U.S. tariffs on China, ushering in a lengthy period of restrictions that will likely prompt businesses to consider shifting their supply chains and operations outside China. While President-elect Joe Biden says he intends to review the tariffs U.S. President Donald Trump placed on China, he has said he will not make any "immediate moves" regarding them. Nevertheless, as the phase one trade deal between the U.S. and China winds down and concludes in 2021 and China continues to remain far behind committed levels of purchases, the Biden administration is not likely to add significantly more tariffs on China to those already existing....
The Biden administration will probably maintain many of the existing U.S. tariffs on China, ushering in a lengthy period of restrictions that will likely prompt businesses to consider shifting their supply chains and operations outside China. While President-elect Joe Biden says he intends to review the tariffs U.S. President Donald Trump placed on China, he has said he will not make any "immediate moves" regarding them. Nevertheless, as the phase one trade deal between the U.S. and China winds down and concludes in 2021 and China continues to remain far behind committed levels of purchases, the Biden administration is not likely to add significantly more tariffs on China to those already existing.
The United States is likely to shore up its China trade policy by seeking some alignment in trade policy via World Trade Organization reform, partnering with countries including Japan, the European Union, the United Kingdom, South Korea and Australia. But such reforms will take time, and require consensus that China can effectively block. The Biden administration could use existing tariffs as collective leverage against China while encouraging like-minded allies to join a multilateral effort for WTO reforms. A strategy in which both the European Union and the United States advocate changes to both WTO rules for developing countries, as well as some of the rules related to industrial subsidies and state-owned enterprises (SOEs), could blunt Chinese efforts to skirt existing WTO rules. Such a strategy, however, would take time, as WTO reform has become increasingly difficult. The Doha Round of trade negotiations, for example, lasted some 14 years before effectively ending in failure.
WTO reform must be sanctioned through member consensus, effectively giving China veto power. Other mixed economies and developing countries would also oppose many U.S. and European proposals against China.
In 2020, the United States significantly expanded its actions against Chinese tech companies by widening export controls on Huawei and SMIC, China's largest semiconductor manufacturer.
Leaks on China's next Five-Year Plan, which was approved in October, indicate that financial support for chip manufacturers and the tech sector are an integral component of its economic strategy document.
The Biden administration will probably consider direct negotiations with China as the phase one trade deal ends in 2021. Any significant pullback of sanctions is unlikely, as Washington will also be under pressure to address Beijing's failure to honor its phase one commitments relating to increased imports from the United States. The Biden administration will focus on structural reform, such as stripping direct support for Chinese SOEs, which China is likely to continue to reject. If the Biden administration maintains such demands for an extended period, negotiations will stall until the United States focuses on China's commitments to purchase more U.S. goods. Additionally, any trade deal that results in a lower value of committed purchases than the deal that Trump negotiated will be politically unpalatable in the United States. China, however, will be willing to sign a trade deal that includes expanded commitments on purchases as a way to string along negotiations and reduce diplomatic tensions ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing and the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China. In a best-case scenario, the United States and China could roll over the trade deal and the United States could perhaps slightly relax some of the tariffs on China. But it is unlikely to secure the kinds of reforms necessary to fully lift tariffs.
Under the phase one trade deal, China promised to increase imports of U.S. goods by a combined $200 billion over 2017 levels in 2020 and 2021.
Through October 2020, China imported $75.5 billion worth of U.S. goods this year, less than half of the $173 billion worth of U.S. goods China was expected to import in 2020.
Under the deal, China agreed to specific commitments in agricultural, energy and manufactured goods purchases — and it is behind schedule on purchases of all of them.
Because China tariffs are likely to remain politically difficult to remove, businesses in many sectors are beginning to look at long-term strategies to manage their impact, investing outside China while also exploring options to shift production operations outside China. Industries that have relatively low costs of final assembly and packaging and low upfront investment costs in building new manufacturing plants, such as in textiles, would probably be prime candidates to move operations out of China and into neighboring countries like Vietnam. The more apparent it becomes that the tariffs will be long-lasting, the more likely that industries with larger costs of moving production will start to shift business operations.
Southeast Asia continues to be the primary beneficiary of any manufacturers looking to leave or diversify away from China; they do not have to face tariffs that can reach 25 percent on most goods from China.
The textile, automotive, chemicals and machinery industries were the most impacted as the Trump administration’s tariffs focused the most heavily on intermediate goods, not consumer goods.
Consumer goods including electronics are likely to be less affected by the trade war itself, as the Trump administration did not include consumer goods as frequently and electronics were largely spared from tariffs. That said, the electronics industry will be more significantly affected by the tech policy the Biden administration will likely maintain that restricts foreign companies’ ability to sell goods to certain Chinese companies.
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https://www.thetrumpet.com/23326-australia-a-warning-to-the-world
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while still a pipe dream
research is getting closer
and china spend 10 x more
and is hell bent on beating to this technology
if it works they would be unhackable while of course they are probably in ours all day long
it could take them beyond 5 G
https://www.newsweek.com/2020/12/25/china-leads-quantum-computing-race-us-spies-plan-world-fewer-secrets-1554439.html
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40 page pdf. Nicely compiled analysis I think consistent with facts and viewpoints posted here on the forum. Nothing particularly new to us, but a good read.
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Global-Strategy-2021-An-Allied-Strategy-for-China.pdf
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9116715/China-denies-entry-team-experts-investigate-origins-Covid-19.html
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9116715/China-denies-entry-team-experts-investigate-origins-Covid-19.html
That story should be dated Nov 2019. Today China still denies the world access and information.
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I always thought of Europe as an ally, but come to think of it, why wouldn't Germany oppose us?
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https://thediplomat.com/2021/01/the-strategic-implications-of-the-china-eu-investment-deal/
The Strategic Implications of the China-EU Investment Deal
The EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment is a win for China, and a blow to transatlantic relations.
January 04, 2021
The Strategic Implications of the China-EU Investment Deal
European Council President Charles Michel arrives for an EU-China Leaders’ meeting video conference at the European Council headquarters in Brussels, Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2020.
Credit: Johanna Geron, Pool Photo via AP
On December 16, 2019, answering a question at an event in Brussels, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi stated that it was unlikely that China could sign an investment agreement with the European Union, because China was a “developing economy.” Fast forward to December 30, 2020. China’s President Xi Jinping held a long-awaited video conference with European Union leaders including Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron. After the video call, the European Union announced in a press statement, “The EU and China concluded in principle the negotiations for a Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI).” What happened?
Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) into the EU has increased exponentially over the last few years, primarily directed to the strategic areas of infrastructure and high technology. According to European Commission data, cumulative flows of Chinese FDI into the EU amounted to almost 120 billion euros. However, EU investment into China was even higher, at more than 140 billion euros. About half of EU FDI in China is in the manufacturing sector, with the German automotive industry as the main investor.
Germany also held the rotating presidency of the EU in the second half of 2020. Merkel had made it a priority to conclude the deal by the end of the German presidency. She was instrumental in persuading the other EU leaders to accept a deal that was so beneficial for German industry. German senior officials within the European Commission drove the negotiations to a successful conclusion. On the Chinese side, Xi unusually stepped in personally and made concessions to clinch the deal. For the EU, this was an opportunity to display its “strategic autonomy” in foreign relations before the new U.S. administration set in. For China, it was a way to drive a wedge between the EU and the United States. [more at link]
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In Hong Kong, Mass Arrests Signal an Escalated Opposition Crackdown
3 MINS READ
Jan 6, 2021 | 21:38 GMT
HIGHLIGHTS
A mass arrest of moderate pro-democracy figures in Hong Kong signals an escalation in the application of the city’s national security law to a broader segment of the political opposition, which will increasingly limit the policymaking power of any pro-democracy forces. The first-time detention of a U.S. citizen, meanwhile, will also test whether U.S. President-elect Joe Biden's incoming administration will be able to navigate Hong Kong tensions without jeopardizing its broader relations with Beijing. On Jan. 6, Hong Kong police carried out a citywide operation in which nearly 1,000 officers netted 53 pro-democracy activists and former lawmakers linked to the July 2020 opposition primary for legislative council elections, leveling accusations of subversion under the city’s draconian national security law. ...
A mass arrest of moderate pro-democracy figures in Hong Kong signals an escalation in the application of the city’s national security law to a broader segment of the political opposition, which will increasingly limit the policymaking power of any pro-democracy forces. The first-time detention of a U.S. citizen, meanwhile, will also test whether U.S. President-elect Joe Biden's incoming administration will be able to navigate Hong Kong tensions without jeopardizing its broader relations with Beijing. On Jan. 6, Hong Kong police carried out a citywide operation in which nearly 1,000 officers netted 53 pro-democracy activists and former lawmakers linked to the July 2020 opposition primary for legislative council elections, leveling accusations of subversion under the city’s draconian national security law.
Hong Kong Secretary for Security John Lee said that the arrested activists had planned "mass destruction,” “overthrow” and paralysis of the Hong Kong government during the unofficial primary. Lee was referring to the "35-plus" strategy advocated by many opposition members, which entailed using the primary to consolidate votes to win a majority that could then be used to paralyze the government by blocking the 2021 budget in hopes of triggering more mass protests, international sanctions and the resignation of Chief Executive Carrie Lam.
Those arrested included former lawmakers Alvin Yeung, James To, Andrew Wan, Claudia Mo and Lam Cheuk-ting in addition to professor Benny Tai, who initially outlined the 35-plus plan. Notably, police also arrested the first U.S. citizen under Hong Kong’s national security law, lawyer John Clancey. Clancey is a long-time human rights activist and Hong Kong resident who served as treasurer for the political group Power for Democracy, which was involved in the primary. Subversion under Article 22-23 of the national security law carries up to a life sentence in prison, with varying offenses penalized with three-to-ten year prison sentences.
Police also delivered information requests to at least three media outlets for data linked to the primary: Apple Daily, InMedia and StandNews. Following raids on the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (PORI), which conducted the primary, PORI said it had destroyed all voter information.
In July, mainland authorities condemned the primary as a challenge to the constitution and the national security law, with pro-Beijing Hong Kong lawmakers calling for an investigation. Hong Kong then derailed any opposition plans by postponing the related legislative council elections, citing COVID-19 risks. After the extended legislature convened, however, authorities moved to expel four sitting pro-democracy lawmakers in early November, prompting the mass resignation of the entire pro-democracy camp, including moderate members.
Hong Kong and mainland authorities appear to be cleaning house, exercising policies that further entrench pro-Beijing power in the city in the hopes of scaring off support for the opposition, while also curbing its capacity and viability as a political alternative. On the tactical level, this includes suppressing protests via the chilling effect of the national security law and mass arrests of dissidents. The long delay in making these arrests suggests that authorities feel as if they can make these moves without spurring major domestic backlash in the form of protests, which have so far been muted. But such measures risk inflaming more radical elements in the Hong Kong protest movement to carry out more violent actions against the government. On a broader level, however, authorities may also pursue reforms to the Hong Kong legislative council that would fundamentally transform the body to curtail the power of elected lawmakers. Motivated by frustration with Hong Kong’s independent judiciary, this may also include judicial reform to limit their ability to check policymakers and to better screen appointees.
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The timing is not totally unrelated to Washington being in turmoil, Trump powerless and a new President who will not make China pay a price for takeover of Hong Kong.
Europe's reaction? An open, mutual investment agreement.
Instapundit: Jack Ma could not be reached for comment.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/as-jack-ma-goes-missing-video-predicting-he-will-either-die-or-go-to-jail-resurfaces/ar-BB1cscgD
Does anyone care about human rights anymore?
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Chinese Communist Party Officials Delete Wuhan Lab Data, Erase COVID Studies
Details of over 300 studies, many of which focus on investigating diseases that transfer from animals to humans, are missing from the state-run National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).
The purge follows the Wuhan lab altering its database of viral pathogens in December 2019 as COVID-19 began to spread.
https://thenationalpulse.com/breaking/ccp-wipes-covid-data/
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Chinese Communist Party Officials Delete Wuhan Lab Data, Erase COVID Studies
Details of over 300 studies, many of which focus on investigating diseases that transfer from animals to humans, are missing from the state-run National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).
The purge follows the Wuhan lab altering its database of viral pathogens in December 2019 as COVID-19 began to spread.
https://thenationalpulse.com/breaking/ccp-wipes-covid-data/
Kind of like how the dems handle ballots and voting machines!
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It Really IS the China Virus
The evidence keeps piling up that the Beijing government is engaged in a gigantic coverup of the origins of the Coronavirus.
This month U.S. officials made it known they’ve concluded the “most credible” explanation for the virus’s origin is that it escaped from a top-secret Chinese lab. China also recently delayed travel permission for a World Health Organization team to visit and investigate the virus. The team had already agreed not to examine the top-secret Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Now Britain’s Mail on Sunday has revealed that details of more than 300 studies carried out by the Wuhan facility are no longer available to researchers.
Among the deleted research are studies conducted by Shi Zhengli, the Wuhan-based virologist who has earned the nickname Batwoman for her efforts to look at how bats can transmit viruses.
Iain Duncan Smith, a former leader of Britain’s Conservative party, told the Mail on Sunday that “China is clearly trying to hide the evidence. It is vital that there is a thorough investigation into what happened but China seems to be doing all it can to stop that happening.”
But don’t worry. We’re sure China-apologist Joe Biden will be hot on the case.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9129681/New-cover-fears-Chinese-officials-delete-critical-data-Wuhan-lab.html
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https://eastvalleypost.com/worlds-second-largest-hydroxychloroquine-plant-in-taiwan-blows-up/
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https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2021/02/04/human-rights-activists-urge-biden-join-boycott-2022-beijing-olympics/
seems like good idea
but will never get beyond an idea with chinese bought and paid for politicians elites media entertainment industry and the likes of Bloomber et al
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https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2021/02/04/human-rights-activists-urge-biden-join-boycott-2022-beijing-olympics/
seems like good idea
but will never get beyond an idea with chinese bought and paid for politicians elites media entertainment industry and the likes of Bloomber et al
Great idea, but not real likely that we elect a Communist China sympathizer conspirators and then expect them to stand up to China.
Rather than boycott, we should set conditions. Ane end to the cheat, steal, rape and pillage might be a start. I would settle for just calling for free and fair elections before winter 2022.
|Since it won't be Biden and Europe doesn't give a bleep, it would be nice if some Asian countries stepped up and led this movement, putting pressure back on Biden to stand up for freedom, consent of the governed and other human-like principles.
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" I would settle for just calling for free and fair elections before winter 2022."
In the PRC or here?
https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2021/02/04/human-rights-activists-urge-biden-join-boycott-2022-beijing-olympics/
seems like good idea
but will never get beyond an idea with chinese bought and paid for politicians elites media entertainment industry and the likes of Bloomber et al
Great idea, but not real likely that we elect a Communist China sympathizer conspirators and then expect them to stand up to China.
Rather than boycott, we should set conditions. Ane end to the cheat, steal, rape and pillage might be a start. I would settle for just calling for free and fair elections before winter 2022.
|Since it won't be Biden and Europe doesn't give a bleep, it would be nice if some Asian countries stepped up and led this movement, putting pressure back on Biden to stand up for freedom, consent of the governed and other human-like principles.
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" I would settle for just calling for free and fair elections before winter 2022."
In the PRC or here?
Good point. Start with the PRC. Then when we host Olympics maybe they will call for that here. )
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If you want to drink a toast to freedom, consider an Australian wine. China has taken umbrage at Australia’s criticism of its human-rights record and slammed tariffs on its wines. Among other outrageous demands, Beijing insists that Australia rein in its free press’s coverage of China.
Australia isn’t alone. China has sought to scare off other democracies from criticizing its regime. “If they dare to harm China’s sovereignty, security and development interests, they should beware of their eyes being poked and blinded,” a Beijing spokesman said in November.
These bullying tactics were honed over the past decade by threatening trade repercussions for democratic leaders (including two Danish prime ministers under whom I am proud to have served) who met with the Dalai Lama. Granting the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo put Norwegian salmon out of the China market for years. China is holding two innocent Canadians hostage as political blackmail for Canada’s following up on a U.S. extradition claim on Huawei’s chief financial officer.
China isn’t alone. Russia has used economic blackmail for many years, not least with its regular threats to block gas flows to Eastern Europe during wintertime. The European Union took steps to counter that blackmail through legislation and investment that empowers all EU states to act in solidarity, reverse their gas flows, and speak with one voice through the EU in negotiating gas deals.
There’s a lesson here: We don’t have to allow autocracies to pick off democracies one by one. The free world can and should do more, by agreeing to an “economic Article 5”—similar to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Article 5, which states that a military attack on one ally is considered an attack on all.
How would that work? An “alliance of democracies” would come together and agree on such a framework, perhaps at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit in May or the Summit of Democracy President Biden has proposed. A democracy subjected to economic coercion by an autocracy could invoke the new economic Article 5 to summon the unified support of fellow democracies.
The joint response should have a bite. It would move beyond statements of support to actions, through a catalog of retaliatory trade measures. Australia wouldn’t face China alone but would be aided by the combined trade power of the world’s democracies which make up more than half of the world’s economic might.
Beyond the economic impact, the symbolism of such solidarity would be a potent deterrent. Bullies respond to strength and exploit weakness. A coordinated response would make them think twice before acting.
Such a mechanism shouldn’t be confined to states alone. Businesses also need to be on the front line defending the rules-based international order, which enables them to trade freely and fairly. Companies haven’t been able to escape these values fights, as the Houston Rockets experienced over Hong Kong, and airlines did when Beijing pressured them to change Taiwan’s status on flight maps. The allies in an economic Article 5 would allow companies facing authoritarian trade curbs to draw on a mutual credit facility. That would strengthen their financial position and stiffen their spine.
The democratic world needs a way of dealing with authoritarian bullies from a position of strength. It’s time to tell the bullies that if they poke one of us in the eye, we’ll all poke back.
Mr. Parello-Plesner is executive director of the Alliance of Democracies Foundation.
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Based on some tips from the Dines Investment Letter, some years ago I had a very successful play in some REE based stocks, so the issues here have been on my radar screen for a while. China also used this threat against Japan as part of a SCS pressure play.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/china-targets-americas-rare-earth-vulnerability_3700741.html?utm_source=morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-02-18
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Vaccine blockade. Taiwan is accusing China of pressuring German company BioNTech, which developed one of the leading COVID-19 vaccines with U.S. firm Pfizer, to back out at the last minute of a deal to supply some 5 million doses of its vaccine to the self-ruled island. China is giving up on wooing back Taiwan.
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fundamental human right that is the most real,"
China mocking what happened in Texas:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/texas-weather-crisis-deepens-chinese-111205544.html
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https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/02/21/farage-chinese-attempting-a-communist-takeover-as-billionaires-buy-up-british-schools/
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China’s Waning Rare Earths Advantage
Beijing won’t be able to threaten to cut off adversaries from critical supplies of the commodities for much longer.
By: Phillip Orchard
In 1992, during a visit to Inner Mongolia, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping quipped: “The Middle East has oil, China has rare earths,” referring to 17 elements on the southern end of the periodic table that are essential to the manufacturing of everything from light bulbs to smartphones to fighter jets. China indeed has rare earth metals, oxides and permanent magnets in spades, as well as a preponderance of the world's rare earth refining operations. As recently as 2010, an estimated 97 percent of rare earths came from China. And Deng, who made rare earths a central part of his plans to turn China into a high-tech powerhouse beginning in the mid-1980s, saw this as “of extremely important strategic significance," calling explicitly for China to fully exploit this advantage.
Subsequent Chinese governments in Beijing have never seemed quite sure of how to do so. But last week, the Financial Times reported that Chinese officials were investigating whether a ban on exports of certain rare earths could cripple U.S. production of F-35s and other weapons systems. A few days later, Bloomberg reported that Beijing was considering a ban on rare-earth refining technology. China's hawkish state-owned Global Times then said something to the effect of, “We're not threatening export controls, except maybe we are.” Curiously, on Friday, China announced a 27 percent increase in rare earths production quotas.
China has periodically threatened to weaponize its dominance over the rare earths industry by banning exports in such a manner. It’s rarely followed through, though, and its export controls have often backfired. But Beijing may be facing a “use it or lose it” moment since, one way or another, China's stranglehold on the industry is coming to an end.
China’s Dominance
The first thing to understand about rare earth elements is that they're not particularly rare. They can be found in vast quantities throughout the world, including in the countries most worried about Chinese dominance over the industry. The United States and Australia have more than enough untapped reserves to be self-sufficient. In a single deepwater discovery in 2013, Japan found enough rare earths to meet its needs for centuries (provided it can find a cost-effective way to extract them, anyway).
(click to enlarge)
However, mining operations are exceedingly rare outside of China. Australia is the world's second-largest producer, and it didn't have an active mine until a decade ago. There’s only one operational mine in the U.S., and it’s been mothballed more often than not since the end of the Cold War.
Australia's Rare Earth Resource Potential
(click to enlarge)
Rarer still are rare earths processing operations. Refining rare earths is expensive, complicated and environmentally (and thus politically) problematic. The only major processing plant outside of China is a facility in Malaysia run by Australian rare-earth developer Lynas, and production there has routinely been bogged down by regulatory and political issues. When immense state support began to pay off in the form of Chinese vertical consolidation over the industry in the early 2000s, no one put up much of a fuss, in part, because no one wanted to deal with the headaches of trying to process rare earths themselves.
But rare earths play a role in nearly every aspect of geopolitical competition among modern-day powers. They’re used in hard drives, in telecoms infrastructure, in oil refining, in nuclear rods and wind turbines, and in missile guidance systems. A single F-35 requires some 920 pounds of rare earths elements, according to the Pentagon. An Ohio-class submarine is built with 9,200 pounds of them. China’s dominance over the REE supply chain was always going to generate alarm eventually.
And this is precisely what happened in 2010, starting with, of all things, a ramming of a Japanese coast guard vessel by a Chinese fishing boat (one of its infamous “maritime militia”) around the hotly disputed Senkaku Islands. Amid the bilateral turmoil that followed, China abruptly slashed its rare earths export quotas by around 37 percent. Japan, China’s largest rare earths customer, naturally saw the worst of the supply chain disruption. Whether or not Beijing was actually retaliating – there’s some reason to think China's imposition of export quotas was already planned and driven by domestic need and other routine commercial factors – what matters is the move was widely perceived as a retaliatory embargo. It brought global attention to the issue and drove prices up, sparking a rush among major consumers to stockpile reserves and diversify sources.
In 2014, the World Trade Organization ruled against China’s export quotas, and China removed them a year later. Ironically, this arguably served Beijing’s interests, as the surge of Chinese exports flooded the global market, gutting prices and wiping out a number of Western firms that had sprouted up after prices spiked in 2010. But if the goal was truly retaliatory, it's hard to characterize China’s restriction of exports as beneficial. It didn’t do much damage to Japanese industry, which found ways to get what it needed through re-exports of rare earths from third countries. And global concern about dependence on Chinese weaponization never fully dissipated. Some new diversification efforts survived, particularly between Australia and Japan, so China never fully recovered its near-monopoly on rare earths production. (Today, the share of global output produced by Chinese mines has dropped to around 63 percent, while China's share of processed rare earths has dropped to around 80 percent.)
Use It or Lose It?
Over the past few years, Beijing has continued to probe for opportunities to leverage its rare earths dominance. For example, following a highly symbolic visit by President Xi Jinping to a rare earth facility at the height of the trade war in 2019, the People's Daily explicitly threatened to cut off rare earth exports to the U.S. They were included in 25 percent retaliatory tariffs imposed by Beijing days later.
If Beijing is ever going to make good on its threats of a full embargo, it may be better off doing so sooner rather than later. Supply chain diversification efforts by outside powers have been picking up steam, putting Chinese leverage on a long-term downward trend. There are a half dozen or so processing projects in the works in the U.S. alone, including a Pentagon-backed heavy rare earths separation facility in Texas involving Lynas that received final approval in January. There's also been a flood of money into recycling and stockpiling projects, as well as into research on more environmentally friendly refining processes. Japan has already proved that such efforts can be successful; its cooperation with Australia has reduced its dependence on China by more than a third. Whereas in the past China has often been able to shut down these kinds of diversification efforts by flooding the market, soaring global demand for rare earths and rising strategic impetus to subsidize non-Chinese supply chains are likely to make operations outside China more financially viable going forward.
Ultimately, Chinese domestic needs are likely to be the main driver behind Beijing's rare earth export policies. In some ways, this portends continued restraint from Beijing, which is leery of doing anything that could end up roiling its own economy. The bulk of Chinese rare earths exports return to China at some point as components for electronics and advanced machinery that China needs to keep its other export sectors humming and to continue its climb up the manufacturing value chain. The potential impact of an embargo directly on the Chinese rare earths sector and all the many sectors that depend on rare earths could leave tens of millions of people out of work.
Over the longer term, it also portends a decline in Chinese exports that has nothing to do with Beijing weaponizing its industry dominance. Chinese domestic demand for rare earths is already exploding. If Beijing is going to deliver on any of its many technological moonshots – such as making the vast majority of its vehicle fleet electric by 2035, reaching 1,000 gigawatts of wind power generation by 2050, and building out the missile, submarine and air power capabilities needed to reach military parity with the U.S. – it will need to hoard most of its rare earths for itself. Chinese exports have already declined as a result, including a 24 percent drop in 2020 from the previous year. Indeed, Chinese demand has outpaced Chinese mining production for the past five years, forcing China to import increasing amounts of raw material from Myanmar, Vietnam and even the U.S. This, more than any desire to ease global concern about a potential embargo, is the main reason behind Friday’s expansion of production quotas.
Deng Xiaoping may have been correct that rare earths, like data and semiconductors, are the “new oil.” The thing about oil is that the strategic value of having a lot of it has often been overstated, especially once it became cheap and easy to move around the globe. Supply disruptions from major producers, of course, can still cause enough short-term pain to make importers leery of doing anything that might provoke them. And, if backed into a corner, China may very well think it has little to lose by rocking the global rare earths market with an export ban. But any benefits of such a move would be short-lived and expensive, and it would quickly bring about a future where production of the elements outside of China is anything but rare.
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https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2021/02/how-chinas-digital-silk-road-leading-countries-away-united-states/172219/
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17122/china-buys-western-academics
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Indo-Pacific deterrence fund. U.S. Indo-Pacific chief Adm. Philip Davidson is asking Congress for some $27 billion to build out its deterrence capabilities across the region. The request includes a $200 million radar system for Palau, the strategically located island nation that, unusually for the region, has been openly lobbying for a U.S. military base. This would tie into a $2.3 billion space-based radar system. There's also a big emphasis on a network of ground-based medium- and intermediate-range missiles across the first island chain, which the U.S. currently is lacking (and also doesn't really have any place yet to put them).
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17160/china-tech-war
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https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/03/18/china-india-japan-quad-biden-indo-pacific-military-geopolitics/?utm_source=PostUp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=31555&utm_term=FP%20This%20Week&?tpcc=31555
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How the Tech War Is Driving the US and EU Together
The need to exclude China from accessing certain technology is pushing the two sides to make a deal.
By: Antonia Colibasanu
Earlier this month, the United States and the European Union warned of the need to protect themselves against competition from China in key technologies. The U.S. National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence issued a report that listed dozens of recommendations to counter China’s growing threat to U.S. dominance in technology, military and economic matters. Days later, the European Commission issued its Digital Compass plan, which aims to reduce the EU’s “high-risk dependencies” on key technologies from the U.S. and China, while also emphasizing the importance of bilateral cooperation with the U.S. through the creation of a new EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council.
For both Brussels and Washington, the goal here is not to make sure production of digital devices remains close to home – much of that production (including assembly and manufacturing of component parts) is already outsourced anyway. Their real concern is ensuring that China’s rise as a global power doesn’t accelerate through its control of the production value chain used to produce essential goods consumed by Europe and the United States. More important, the U.S. is looking to make sure China doesn’t have access to critical technology, especially technology used to produce semiconductors, that can be used for both civilian and military applications – so-called dual-use technology. For this to happen, the U.S. needs the cooperation of the EU and a certain Dutch company.
Semiconductors and Why They Matter
With the COVID-19 pandemic, digitization has faced its biggest test yet. Unlike the 2007-08 recession, which drove down consumer demand, the pandemic has created a dual challenge, affecting both demand and supply. Companies and organizations in nearly all sectors were forced to implement extraordinary measures to protect their workforce and maintain their operations, creating the need for accelerated digital adaptation and increasing the pressure on the digital production industry. And as the production value chain faced growing pressure, so did the resources on which it depended. For digital products, this includes semiconductors (or chips) – tiny electronic switches that run computations inside any and all computers.
The global market for semiconductors is driven by growing demand for smartphones, tablets, digital TVs, wireless communications infrastructure, network hardware and all other goods that use computers – many of which are produced in China, making it the world’s biggest market for semiconductors. China consumes more than 50 percent of all semiconductors, for both internal use and exports. However, China is heavily reliant on externally produced semiconductors. Chinese manufacturers are capable of meeting only about 25-30 percent of internal demand, which doesn’t include the most advanced chips needed for a lot of what China produces (e.g., smartphones). China-headquartered semiconductor firms supply less than 5 percent of the global market.
This is why the Chinese Communist Party’s five-year plan released in 2011 identified increasing China’s production of semiconductors as a top priority. In 2014, China’s State Council set a goal of becoming a global leader in all segments of the semiconductor industry by 2030. China wants to move up the value chain from assembling final products using imported components to creating advanced technology at home. To do so, it created a $29 billion state-backed fund in 2019 to invest in the semiconductor industry and support talent recruitment and knowledge acquisition. This month, the Chinese government awarded $2.35 billion to the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. for the construction of a new plant, the first major project to emerge from China’s roadmap to self-sufficiency.
However, the majority of semiconductors manufactured by Chinese enterprises are lower-end products, meaning domestic manufacturers need to enhance research and development so they can produce higher-end goods instead of relying on imports. This will be a slow process, but China hopes to speed it up by investing in economic espionage, which includes things like recruiting engineers from producing countries and offering cash incentives for firms that can bring intellectual property from rival companies.
(click to enlarge)
Since Taiwan is the largest manufacturer of semiconductors worldwide, accounting for more than 50 percent of global supply, it has been the primary target of Chinese intelligence. In addition to actively recruiting Taiwanese engineers, China has relied on state-sponsored hackers, who have targeted Taiwan for years. In its latest report released in 2020, Taiwanese cybersecurity firm CyCraft detailed how a hacking campaign named Operation Skeleton Key compromised at least seven Taiwanese chip firms over the past two years. According to the report, the intrusions appeared aimed at stealing as much intellectual property as possible, including source codes, software development kits and chip designs.
Not All Technologies Are Created Equal
China now wants to acquire cutting-edge manufacturing equipment imported by Taiwan from Europe and the U.S. to produce its own semiconductors and the equipment needed to make them. China’s interest in U.S. and European equipment is focused on the technology that makes chip manufacturing possible. The production value chain for semiconductors has three distinct components: design (45 percent of the value chain), front-end fabrication (45 percent) and back-end assembly, testing and packaging (10 percent). For the design element, there are two groups of companies: integrated device manufacturers, which have integrated design with production and therefore have in-house technology to produce semiconductors, and fabless firms, which focus only on chip design and partner with a contract foundry like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (China’s largest chip supplier) to manufacture them.
Typical Global Semiconductor Production Pattern
(click to enlarge)
While some integrated device manufacturers develop their own production technologies, the foundries rely on equipment, tools and software produced by external firms to make semiconductors. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), like other foundries, is dependent on other companies to supply the equipment needed for production. But only a small number of manufacturers produce this equipment: Five companies account for more than 75 percent of global supply. Three of these companies are based in the U.S. – Applied Materials, Lam Research Corp. and KLA Corp. – and the other two are Japanese firm Tokyo Electron and Dutch company ASML.
Semiconductor Sector Breakdown
(click to enlarge)
The U.S. appears to have a dominant position in the semiconductor manufacturing equipment market, even though the Dutch ASML is the only firm supplying machinery for very high-end chips (used by the military and others). The U.S. companies produce older generation lithography machines that can make less cost-effective chips, and whose exports to China have increased threefold since 2014.
But in May 2020, the U.S. government introduced new rules to restrict exports of all U.S.-made design software and technology, electronic design automation software tools and equipment to China’s Huawei and its affiliates. The ban also included anything using U.S. chipmaking intellectual property, which put U.S. suppliers (ASML and TSMC) in a tight spot. In December 2020, the same restrictions were put on Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC), China’s top chipmaker. Now, a license approved by the U.S. Defense Department is needed to export “items uniquely required to produce semiconductors at advanced technology nodes, at 10nm [nanometers] or below.”
Ten-nanometer and smaller node chips are advanced chips used by both the telecoms industry and the military. The five U.S. and European equipment manufacturers named above offer machinery that produce such chips. However, only the Netherlands’ ASML can provide the most advanced photolithography technology to produce 7-nanometer and 5-nanometer node chips. These are made using extreme ultraviolet photolithography (EUV), a technology that is not yet in mass production, extremely expensive and high in demand. (There’s a two-year waiting list for EUV machines.) The chips that EUV machinery produce are used in all advanced weaponry that’s under development today: autonomous weapons systems, hypersonic missiles, cyberweapons and surveillance tools, and the latest generation of nuclear weapons. They’re also, of course, used by smartphone and computer manufacturers because smaller chips improve the performance of digital devices. In short, these chips make your smartphone faster and more “intelligent.”
As the only company that supplies the EUV technology that can produce both 7-nanometer and 5-nanometer node chips, ASML is the key player in the market. (TSMC has acquired the EUV technology to produce the 7-nanometer node chips but not the 5-nanometer ones.) While it has offices in the U.S., Japan, Taiwan and even China, ASML is a Dutch company, and as a member of the European Union, the Netherlands is required to comply with EU rules.
An Alliance in the Making?
The U.S. and EU have so far struggled to reach an agreement on digital issues. Over the past 10 years, trans-Atlantic relations have been strained over differences on important policy issues such as data protection and antitrust law and how to deal with China’s Huawei. But a new consensus on semiconductors may be emerging. Here, the U.S. is focused on trade policy, an area that seems more likely to inspire consensus within the EU, especially after the pandemic tested its digital infrastructure.
The European Commission’s report issued in March on the bloc’s digital strategy emphasizes the need to set up an EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council, which would allow the two sides to establish standards and harmonize definitions on critical technology. This would help the EU create a foundation, a common language and a digital market that could operate across the Continent. For the U.S., it would help increase U.S. influence over the Continent and limit China’s, since having a common language would facilitate the establishment of common policies.
This comes after the European Commission proposed a Transatlantic Agreement on Artificial Intelligence in December 2020. While the EU says it wants to increase European autonomy on technologies like semiconductors, the truth is that Europe has a long way to go. Not only have many EU member states seen delays in deploying both fixed and mobile infrastructure, but Europe also lacks large-scale digital platforms. Europe needs more investors in this field – and the U.S. has a strategic interest in being one of them. The U.S. is, after all, still the EU’s top trade partner in goods and services and plays a major role in its defense as a NATO ally.
Coincidentally, in its report published in March, the U.S. National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence recommended that the U.S. and Europe increase collaboration, including in research and development and cross-border data sharing. It also said that artificial intelligence interoperability between allies should be promoted through, for example, the creation of an Atlantic-Pacific Security Technology Partnership that would include European and Indo-Pacific countries. On semiconductors, the report says that the U.S., Japan and the Netherlands should align their policies on the export of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, particularly EUV equipment and argon fluoride immersion lithography equipment.
For those knowledgeable in the industry, it might sound strange to have argon fluoride immersion lithography included in the technologies the U.S. wants to keep away from China, considering such technology has been used to produce regular chips – of 10 nanometers and above – that are not used in military applications. But ASML’s newest argon fluoride system, which was first sold in 2020, can produce the 7-nanometer node semiconductor, which has dual use.
ASML recently extended its contract to supply equipment to China’s SMIC to the end of 2021. Last year, ASML’s revenue from Chinese sales totaled 1.9 billion euros ($2.3 billion), or 13.2 percent of its total revenue. That’s a significant market for the Dutch firm, but it’s unclear how much it would be affected by a ban on argon fluoride technology exports since the company’s Chinese sales partly go to fabs owned by non-Chinese companies operating in China. Plus, a ban likely wouldn’t include the less advanced dry argon fluoride equipment. What is clear, however, is that the U.S. relies on the Netherlands to ensure that ASML doesn’t export dual-use equipment to China. As technology advances, there will be a growing need for the U.S. to coordinate with Europe on trade policy toward countries like China. And that can happen only through a formal agreement between the U.S. and the EU.
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https://patriotpost.us/alexander/78663-chicom-joe-and-the-china-virus-2021-03-24?mailing_id=5712&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.5712&utm_campaign=alexander&utm_content=header.default
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https://amgreatness.com/2021/03/24/the-nature-of-chinese-contempt-for-us/
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https://amgreatness.com/2021/03/24/the-nature-of-chinese-contempt-for-us/
Yup.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17219/china-free-speech-europe
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In Battle With U.S. for Global Sway, China Showers Money on Europe’s Neglected Areas
Goods are arriving in Europe through a new trade corridor consisting of railroads, airport hubs and ports built with Chinese support
A China-Europe freight train setting out from Tuanjie Village Station in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality. TANG YI/ZUMA PRESS
EMAIL
By Tom Fairless
April 13, 2021 6:39 am ET
DUISBURG, Germany—The struggle between the U.S. and China for global influence has come to Europe’s gritty industrial backwaters, where China is steadily co-opting local economies starting with their railroads.
China overtook the U.S. as the European Union’s biggest trading partner for goods last year, a historic turning point driven in part by Europeans’ hunger for Chinese medical equipment and electronics during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Increasingly, those goods are arriving in Europe through a new trade corridor consisting of railroads, airport hubs and ports built with Chinese support, often as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the giant global infrastructure effort aimed at binding China more closely to the rest of the world.
By greasing the wheels of China-Europe trade, those investments have lifted long-neglected, rust-belt cities in places like Duisburg, Germany, and Liege, Belgium.
Western officials, including in the U.S., have accused China of using the Belt and Road to trap poor countries in debt. The Chinese government has denied those accusations.
While the pandemic has clouded the outlook for Belt and Road, Beijing isn’t likely to abandon it now that the Chinese economy is recovering.
In Europe, China has adapted its approach, sometimes operating below the radar with local authorities and companies. China subsidizes the trains and tracks while big companies such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. provide direction and demand.
That might help Beijing tie rich countries even more closely to China. Europe’s trade links with China have already made it reluctant to accede to Washington’s attempts to turn it against the Asian giant.
The number of freight trains running between China and Europe topped 12,400 last year, 50% higher than in 2019 and seven times that of 2016, according to Chinese authorities. Demand for trains has been so high that freight companies have introduced a lottery system to allocate space, according to Chinese state media.
The World Bank estimates that Belt and Road transport infrastructure can boost trade by up to 10% for countries along the route.
Liege and Duisburg are both part of the Belt and Road initiative, although Germany and Belgium haven’t formally signed up to it, according to Chinese state media and local port officials.
“In gray, unglamorous areas like infrastructure and supply chains, there’s a lot less media and political attention, and more understanding that economic integration is necessary,” said Bruno Maçães, a former Portuguese minister who wrote a book on the Belt and Road project.
Europe’s political relationship with China has soured in recent months, notwithstanding a sweeping investment deal they loosely agreed to in December. While many European manufacturers rely heavily on Chinese appetite for autos, luxury products and other goods, they are increasingly alarmed to see China take market share in areas such as advanced manufacturing and engineering.
In infrastructure, however, Europe is much more welcoming of China’s presence and know-how, Mr. Maçães said.
Chinese shipping groups own terminals or share ownership in around a dozen European ports including Antwerp, Rotterdam, Valencia and Marseille.
U.S. officials have warned their European counterparts against excessive dependence on China. The U.S. launched a more limited global infrastructure project in 2019 alongside Japan and Australia.
In Duisburg, a west German steel town that handles more than a third of Europe-China rail freight traffic, trade with China rose 70% last year. A new rail terminal there part-built by China’s Cosco Shipping Holdings Co. will help expand China trade a further 40% to 100 trains a week, according to local officials.
“For Duisburg, it’s manna from heaven,” said Markus Taube, professor of East Asian economics at the University of Duisburg-Essen.
The rail line’s speed compared with the sea route offers a valuable alternative for producers of perishable or time-sensitive, high-value goods like electronics. Chinese internet giant JD.com Inc. is working with the port to export European industrial and consumer goods to China, according to the port’s chief executive, Erich Staake.
“We are currently transporting as much as possible—as much as our tracks allow,” said a spokesman for German rail company Deutsche Bahn AG, which operates trains between 17 European countries and China via Poland, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Some studies suggest that several hundred thousand trains a year could be plying the Europe-China rail route by the 2030s, he said.
The rail route was recently boosted further by the blockage of the Suez Canal.
Chinese investments support 23,000 jobs in the German state of North Rhine Westphalia, home to Duisburg and the Ruhr industrial heartland, while more than 1,000 local companies have invested in China, according to Andreas Pinkwart, the state’s economy minister.
In Liege, a Belgian city that has suffered the downturn in steel partly due to low-cost competitors in China, airfreight volumes are up 50% in the two years since Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba picked the city as its European hub, said Steven Verhasselt, who runs the airport’s commercial department.
“Every month in 2020 was a record and now in 2021 we are growing 20% year on year,” he said.
With support from Belgian officials, the airport has combined with a sleepy rail station to create a single customs zone. Six trains a week now travel between Liege and China, making it the first dedicated service for e-commerce between the Yangtze River Delta region of China, Central Asia and Europe.
That is all before Alibaba has even completed construction on the new hub. With other Chinese companies also looking at using it, Mr. Verhasselt expects freight volumes to double over the next four years to two million metric tons annually, potentially putting the airport on par with Paris Charles de Gaulle and Frankfurt International.
The airport’s expansion has created around 1,000 jobs over the past two years in a region with high unemployment. Belgium’s postal service and other non-Chinese businesses have become heavy users of the new rail line. And aircraft and trains back to China are filling up with European goods, including milk powder, leather products, salmon and cheeses. Planes that used to return empty are now 80% full.
The rail link to China was one of the requirements that Alibaba had when selecting its European hub, said Mr. Verhasselt. “The Belt and Road is a success story in Liege because of Alibaba,” he said.
An Alibaba spokesperson said the company is investing 100 million euros, equivalent to $119 million, to build a logistics hub at Liege Airport that should be operational this year, as part of an agreement with the Belgian region of Wallonia.
The fast rail link has provided a critical edge for Chinese manufacturers competing in Europe, said Alexander Alban, managing partner at German mechanical parts manufacturer Walter Schimmel GmbH. Italian business executives say they are being squeezed out of Germany’s industrial supply chain by the Chinese, who can now transport heavy industrial goods quickly and cheaply into the heart of Europe.
Chinese exports to the EU jumped 63% in January and February year-over-year, while imports from Europe rose 33%.
However, tensions exist. U.S. officials recently cautioned German officials about China’s plans to expand its activities in Duisburg, according to a person familiar with the matter. In Portugal, where Chinese companies are considering building a container port terminal, the U.S. ambassador warned recently that Portugal must choose between America and China.
Chinese investment in Piraeus, near Athens, has helped transform Greece’s primary port over the past decade from an economic backwater into Europe’s fourth-busiest.
Cosco, which controls the port, has proposed building a fourth container terminal that could allow trade volumes to double again, potentially putting Piraeus on a par with giant European ports such as Hamburg.
Ten trains a week ply a new rail route that connects Piraeus’s port with Eastern European markets including the Czech Republic, transporting around 100,000 containers a year, said Nektarios Demenopoulos, a spokesman for the Piraeus Port Authority.
Greece hasn’t yet approved Cosco’s expansion plans. Greek officials have complained the Chinese company has received most of the benefits. But after Cosco said last month that it would build a children’s playground for local residents, the mayor of Piraeus, Ioannis Moralis, expressed confidence the port would soon be better integrated with the city.
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We've come to the point where Europe is not our ally anymore. I don't even know if the US is our ally anymore.
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Hard to see how we can avoid for #2 status.
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Hard to see how we can avoid for #2 status.
PRC population = 1.4 billion
US population = 330 million
If they have grown past third world country status, hard to see how they don't go past us in terms of GDP and ability to spend on military. But if it is China vs. the world, the US side includes some parts of the rest of the world, hopefully much more than China. If not (all of) Europe, there is India, Japan, Australia, maybe UK, Canada and others.
Our main problem/challenge is to get our own house in order. The market system will do fine overall against central planning, if only we had retained the free market system. In some ways like business taxes, their market is freer. For single minded efforts like building the pyramids, the master slave economy has certain advantages.
I believe that right before Covid we had them close to where we wanted them in negotiations. Since then, we lost our grip, we lost Trump, they gained Biden, we lost our growth engine, we lost our leverage, we lost Europe, and on it goes.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17297/china-fishing-fleet
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European resistance to China. Soon to be flush with European recovery funds, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi is reportedly moving to bolster measures aimed at preventing foreign (i.e., Chinese and Russian) takeovers of distressed Italian companies – as happened across the Continent during the European sovereign debt crisis. Meanwhile, Montenegro is reportedly seeking deeper integration with the European Union, partly as a way to gain leverage in its efforts to renegotiate a loan agreement with China.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17332/china-new-zealand-five-eyes
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/chinese-leader-xi-jinping-lays-out-plan-to-control-the-global-internet-leaked-documents_3791944.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-05-03&mktids=dde638cfc42810e3fba4696359a6485a&est=WEzzWsyd7faBz3lUacNYq7maVFffgljovvU5S2%2BRQhg0IQbEa3Kip1mY1gN24q3RBbK8
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Europe Starts to Come Around on China
Putting business first and alienating the U.S. has backfired.
By The Editorial Board
May 6, 2021 6:47 pm ET
President Biden wants to work with traditional American allies to resist China’s increasing belligerence. While the European Union has tried to steer its own course, Beijing is doing its part to revive the trans-Atlantic alliance.
“We now in a sense have suspended . . . political outreach activities from the European Commission side,” EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis told AFP on Tuesday. “The environment is not conducive for ratification of the agreement.” Mr. Dombrovskis is referring to the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment, a deal meant to provide Europe and China greater access to each other’s markets.
Weeks before becoming U.S. national security adviser, Jake Sullivan requested “early consultations” with Brussels about the pact. Europe responded by announcing it had reached an agreement-in-principle with China. But the European Parliament and 27 national leaders still have to approve the deal.
That process became more complicated in March, when the European Union announced sanctions targeting four Chinese officials involved with human-rights abuses in the Xinjiang region. Beijing responded by imposing sanctions on several members of the European Parliament and other Europeans critical of the Chinese Communist Party.
It’s hard to ratify a deal with a country that has sanctioned officials who will vote on ratification, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel is still trying. She spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron last month, and the German readout of the call didn’t mention human rights. The French later said it came up, but Ms. Merkel is trying to play down the issue as she seeks to solidify the deal before elections this year.
Europe understandably wants to resolve its trade issues with China—so does the U.S. Germany exported nearly €100 billion in goods to China last year, and the trade pact theoretically creates opportunities in autos, telecom and healthcare, among other industries.
But Ms. Merkel’s “change through trade” philosophy—something we once hoped for China—is out of date. Economic relations need to consider China’s often predatory mercantilism, IP theft and cyber spying. Beijing saw Europe’s snub of the new U.S. Administration last year as a major geopolitical victory.
An EU official clarified Tuesday that the talks were “not quite suspended” and “ratification will depend on how the situation evolves.” Ms. Merkel and her allies will continue to fight for the deal. But skepticism is growing in the European Parliament, the German political class and the European public. Rather than struggle to pass a flawed deal, the Continent would be better off regrouping and approaching China in a united trade front with the U.S. and other like-minded nations.
Winston Churchill may or not have said the famous line, “The Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.” But we’d understand if Mr. Biden feels the same way about his friends in Europe.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17336/china-pollution-climate
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https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/chinese-military-discussed-weaponizing-covid-2015-cause-enemys-medical-system-collapse?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A+The+Durden+Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter
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https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/chinese-military-discussed-weaponizing-covid-2015-cause-enemys-medical-system-collapse?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A+The+Durden+Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter
Scary stuff. Quite incriminating. Whether it was intentional or they were collecting and investigating these viruses for offensive and defensive purposes and it escaped accidentally, the result is the same and the crime is the same. Think Derrick Chauvin. The recklessness of what China did in the lab and planning for this possibility was criminal, the result was pandemic worldwide. The verdict must be mass murder, multi-million counts. I would add hate crime to the charge and double the penalty. BTW, what is the penalty? With Biden, obviously nothing. The rest of the country and the world should insist this be taken to The Hague and tried as a war crime, with real charges, discovery, witnesses and Journalists covering it. Hold the PLA accountable, all the way up to Xi.
Liberals in US and Europe want world government. Let's try it here with basic world law enforcement. Try the case and make the Chinese regime give up power if guilty. Is that too much to ask?
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Risky tactic. China’s pressure campaign against Australia is increasingly moving into energy commodities, with at least two Chinese importers of liquefied natural gas reportedly ordered to buy from elsewhere. This is partially the result of trade diversion that was bound to happen with the signing of the “phase one” U.S.-China trade deal in early 2020; to even come close to meeting its ambitious import targets, China needs to buy a whole lot of energy from the United States. But targeting Australian gas, coal and other energy commodities is a little risky, given that Chinese demand is likely to remain high for a long time.
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Risky tactic. China’s pressure campaign against Australia is increasingly moving into energy commodities, with at least two Chinese importers of liquefied natural gas reportedly ordered to buy from elsewhere. This is partially the result of trade diversion that was bound to happen with the signing of the “phase one” U.S.-China trade deal in early 2020; to even come close to meeting its ambitious import targets, China needs to buy a whole lot of energy from the United States. But targeting Australian gas, coal and other energy commodities is a little risky, given that Chinese demand is likely to remain high for a long time.
Yes, risky.
Definition of a trade war: You shoot a hole in the bottom of your boat. I retaliate by shooting a bigger hole in the bottom of mine.
Trade is mutually beneficial by definition. Energy goes beyond that; it is essential for survival and prosperity. Seems dumb to screw around with that.
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Chinese squeeze play on Australia still on. China’s National Development and Reform Commission on Monday said it was encouraging importers to look elsewhere for iron ore, Australia’s most lucrative commodity export. Meanwhile, a new study suggests that Sino-Australian tensions led to a 29 percent drop in investment in Australian real estate. Australian exports to China and Chinese investment in Australia were the two foremost reasons Australia was able to avoid a recession for more than two decades pre-pandemic.
Not-so-secret talks. China has reportedly been holding behind-the-scenes talks with a handful of countries on potentially joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the strategically important 11-nation (12 before the U.S. withdrew in 2017) trade pact. Officials from Australia, Malaysia and New Zealand have apparently taken part, and likely some other member states as well. If such talks gain traction, it would say quite a bit about the direction regional states see the Sino-U.S. competition going over the long term. Japan and several other members are anxious to get Washington back in the pact ASAP, so expect to see more of these sorts of reports leak as a tactic aimed at generating pro-CPTPP momentum in the United States.
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May 21, 2021
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Even Under Siege, Huawei Increases Its Reach
Its global footprint is still huge and steadily expanding.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Huawei's Developing Global Reach
(click to enlarge)
U.S. measures targeting Chinese telecoms giant Huawei have hit the company hard. U.S. restrictions on semiconductor sales have pushed it into crisis mode at home. U.S. software restrictions have hammered Huawei's smartphone market share. And U.S. efforts to deny it access to Western markets have been fruitful, with dozens of countries in Europe and elsewhere adopting at least partial bans on including Huawei gear in their 5G network rollouts. But Huawei's global footprint is still huge and steadily expanding. After all, the full suite of products and services it offers goes far beyond smartphones and 5G – and Huawei wields tremendous advantages thanks, in part, to government financial and diplomatic backing.
Naturally, the developing world is where these advantages deliver the most diplomatic bang for their buck. This is evident in Huawei's sales of cloud infrastructure and e-government services. More than half of the 70 deals in 41 countries Huawei is confirmed to have inked in these sectors are in emerging markets. Among these, the largest share – around 36 percent – have come in sub-Saharan Africa. A full 72 percent of deals have been inked with countries characterized as middle income. And given Huawei's talent for wooing authoritarian governments in places notorious for a lack of transparency, the true number is likely higher.
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https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/biden-intel-nominee-grilled-for-huawei-work/
May 21, 2021
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Even Under Siege, Huawei Increases Its Reach
Its global footprint is still huge and steadily expanding.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Huawei's Developing Global Reach
(click to enlarge)
U.S. measures targeting Chinese telecoms giant Huawei have hit the company hard. U.S. restrictions on semiconductor sales have pushed it into crisis mode at home. U.S. software restrictions have hammered Huawei's smartphone market share. And U.S. efforts to deny it access to Western markets have been fruitful, with dozens of countries in Europe and elsewhere adopting at least partial bans on including Huawei gear in their 5G network rollouts. But Huawei's global footprint is still huge and steadily expanding. After all, the full suite of products and services it offers goes far beyond smartphones and 5G – and Huawei wields tremendous advantages thanks, in part, to government financial and diplomatic backing.
Naturally, the developing world is where these advantages deliver the most diplomatic bang for their buck. This is evident in Huawei's sales of cloud infrastructure and e-government services. More than half of the 70 deals in 41 countries Huawei is confirmed to have inked in these sectors are in emerging markets. Among these, the largest share – around 36 percent – have come in sub-Saharan Africa. A full 72 percent of deals have been inked with countries characterized as middle income. And given Huawei's talent for wooing authoritarian governments in places notorious for a lack of transparency, the true number is likely higher.
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China versus Lithuania. Over the weekend, Lithuania withdrew from a cooperation forum involving China and 17 Central and Eastern European states and called on other EU members to follow suit. On Monday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry tried to shrug it off, calling Lithuania's move an "isolated incident" that wouldn't derail Chinese cooperation with the grouping. But an article in the hawkish Global Times ripped into Lithuania, saying the country is "not qualified to attack China and this is not the way a small country should act" and that "when such a small country is aggressive ... it will invite trouble." This sort of rhetoric will resonate far beyond the Baltics. A similar statement from China's foreign minister in 2010 directed at "small countries" in Southeast Asia, for example, was considered an inflection point in regional perceptions of Chinese coercion.
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https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/jim-treacher/2021/05/25/chinese-communist-party-shelled-out-millions-for-propaganda-in-american-newspapers-n1449515
Chinese Communist Party Shelled Out Millions for Propaganda in American Newspapers
https://freebeacon.com/media/chinese-propaganda-outlet-paid-millions-to-american-%20newspapers-and-magazines/
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Shouldn't cost that much, America's newspapers are already a propaganda arm for the Chinese Communist Party.
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The FreeBeacon page is showing "not found".
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17420/eu-china-investment-treaty
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most stunning is his prediction that China's population could shrink by 1 billion people by end of century:
https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/gordon-chang-covid-19-intelligence-research/2021/06/01/id/1023488/
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/06/china-is-turning-its-water-scarcity-crisis-into-a-weapon/
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Backlash in Budapest. Protests broke out in Budapest over the weekend against the Hungarian government’s plans to construct a Chinese university campus in the city. The project would require a $1.8 billion investment from Hungary.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/07/pompeo-libby-china-covid-biden/
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China eyes stake at Hamburg port. Chinese state-owned shipping company COSCO is in advanced negotiations with the Port of Hamburg’s HHLA over acquiring a 30-40 percent stake in the Tollerort container terminal. The agreement would enable COSCO ships to receive priority handling there in the future. Talks have been conducted in coordination with the German government, which has not yet raised any serious objections.
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Brief: NATO’s Concerns Over China
A communique specifically cites the problems over Beijing’s growing nuclear arsenal.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Background: NATO has had a bit of an identity crisis ever since the Soviet Union collapsed. Not only is there no longer a primary enemy to ally against, but each NATO member increasingly has national interests that may run counter to the others', including those over China. The United States in particular is trying to expand NATO cooperation to counter Chinese influence in Europe, which often takes the form of economic, not military, action.
What Happened: NATO issued its official communique after its June 14 summit. In it, the alliance expressed concern over China’s rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal (both in terms of the number of warheads and number of delivery systems to establish a nuclear triad). The communique also says China and Russia are cooperating militarily, including in Russian-led exercises in the Euro-Atlantic area.
Bottom Line: Russia and China already established bilateral military cooperation and drills through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. These joint exercises and military maneuvers, however, take place primarily in Central and Eastern Asian countries, not the Euro-Atlantic area. It’s unclear what activities NATO is referring to, but the potential introduction of such a dynamic could greatly change the strategic calculus for European defense.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/06/chinas-soft-power-in-africa-has-hard-edges/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Saturday%20New%202021-06-19&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart
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Wolf War and Peace
Will more civil diplomacy actually benefit Beijing?
By: Phillip Orchard
Chinese President Xi Jinping did the unexpected earlier this month during a speech delivered to a Politburo study session: He told his government to focus on cultivating a “trustworthy, lovable and respectable” image of China. That’s not the same as being trustworthy, lovable and respectable. But it stood out because Beijing, in both word and deed, has spent much of the past few years doing effectively the opposite, consequences be damned. This attitude has been embodied most visibly by the emergence of China's new, abrasive generation of “wolf warrior” diplomats, who have been making waves with a curious approach to statecraft centered heavily on Twitter trolling, pushing conspiracy theories, and even disrupting public events that challenge the party line. Their tactics had previously been encouraged, if only implicitly, by Xi himself.
The pugilism of Chinese diplomacy reflects both the country's burgeoning strengths and its enduring strategic and institutional frailties. Beijing has never had this much ability to reshape the international system around its needs, and yet most of the recent diplomatic big talk has been meant to impress domestic audiences. Xi may have concluded that things have gone a bit too far – that the costs of antagonizing the court of international public opinion are real. But Beijing realizes that a global strategy centered on winning hearts and minds is unlikely to bear much fruit.
Thin Skin
As in most authoritarian regimes, where the risks of acting out of step can be deadly, Chinese diplomats have generally had a bloodless reputation: charming in person but almost painfully taciturn and risk-averse in official capacities. To an extent, this reflected Beijing's broader strategic worldview, as encapsulated by Deng Xiaoping’s axiom that China should “bide its time and hide its capabilities.” China was rapidly getting rich off the international system, so it had little to gain from rocking the boat until it had amassed the power to do so without getting thrown overboard.
Under Xi, China’s Foreign Ministry has hurtled in the extreme opposite direction, with senior officials and far-flung envoys alike showing their “fighting spirit” with a vigor that would make Madame Mao proud. The resulting “wolf warrior” moniker comes from a pair of recent blockbuster hits in China where a Rambo-like figure repeatedly lays waste to the motherland's many foreign enemies.
There have been several incidents in the past few years that are hard to see as beneficial for Chinese ambitions. For example, last October, Chinese officials gatecrashed a Taiwan National Day celebration in Fiji and ended up sparking a fistfight over a cake bearing the Taiwanese flag. There was the time in 2017 when a Chinese delegation shouted down Australia’s foreign minister at an international conference on blood diamonds until a Taiwanese delegation was ejected. There have been countless cringeworthy tweets spreading conspiracy theories about COVID-19’s origins and vaccines, mocking countries that have struggled to contain its spread, and launching wild counterattacks against petty slights, both real and imagined. It’s all gotten more pronounced since the pandemic.
Chinese diplomats aren’t wholly unique in this regard, of course. The rise of Twitter and other platforms has allowed senior officials everywhere to show the public just how thin their skin really is. But it's a particularly conspicuous departure from the norm for China. And it’s elicited a lot of dismay and derision, even among more seasoned Chinese diplomats. Longtime Ambassador to the U.S. Cui Tiankai, who is set to be replaced by a more sharp-tongued figure in the coming months, has obliquely criticized the wolf warriors several times. Evidently, it may be becoming a little much even for Xi, who has encouraged the practice, perhaps unwittingly, by repeatedly calling on Chinese diplomats to stay ready to fight.
A Modest Course Correction
There are several things going on here. To start, there are at least some tactical benefits to this approach – even if they don't outweigh the risks – at a time when China is facing a mountain of unwanted attention over things like COVID-19, Xinjiang, Hong Kong and its isolation campaign against Taiwan. Flooding the zone with disinformation, conspiracy theories, false equivalents, and historical grievances is irritating for those who prefer honest debate, but it's undeniably proved successful as a communications strategy for leaders across the globe in recent years.
But the main driving factors are domestic. Nationalism is an extraordinarily powerful tool and one the ruling party has long been skilled at using to distract the public from problems at home. China today is more powerful and more insulated to international pressure than ever. It’s got to feel good to flex a bit; some high-profile wolf warriors have become minor celebrities on Chinese social media. Under Xi, more broadly, Beijing has been shifting the national narrative from China as a poor country under permanent siege to China as an ascendant superpower on track to put the century of humiliation in the past for good. Two-level game theory – where public statements made by envoys are intended as much to please domestic audiences as to persuade their counterparts across the negotiating table – is a permanent fixture of diplomacy. Under China and the wolf warriors, this dynamic is merely tilting more and more toward the home front.
Finally, it reflects Chinese institutional cultures and the precarious reality of life as a Chinese diplomat. During periods of political stress and power struggles in Beijing, China’s foreign ministry historically has not fared well, facing major purges repeatedly since the Communist Party came to power. Diplomats are particularly quick to come under suspicion for disloyalty, given their exposure to foreign influences and ability to do their jobs with relatively little supervision. Indeed, many of China's best envoys – those with the most experience in and expertise about a particular country – have found themselves in situations where their skillsets had become subjects of suspicion within their own bureaucracy. To deflect this and keep their jobs, performative nationalism has often been an essential job requirement. The surest path to either career advancement or merely survival is to stand out as an unyielding, unapologetic defender of Xi's vision of Chinese rejuvenation.
Does any of this matter in the big picture? Xi’s call for a modest course correction suggests it does. There are some risks to the wolf warrior approach. In general, smooth diplomacy can't do a whole lot to persuade countries to do something that’s not in their perceived interest. But antagonistic diplomacy can be meaningfully counterproductive. In other words, Chinese hostility has made it harder for, say, Australian leaders to do business with China even in areas where there's a lot of mutual interest. Conversely, anti-Chinese measures that may previously have been too politically painful for Australia to adopt now sail through parliament. In the past few years alone, political backlash against Chinese coercion has derailed several Chinese Belt and Road Initiative projects in Malaysia, Sri Lanka and elsewhere, scuppered the EU-China investment treaty, reelected an independence-leaning president in Taiwan and pushed India to finally join the ranks of a Western alliance system in the Quad.
The deeper reality is that China has a reputation problem rooted in strategic and internal political imperatives that make much of the world deeply uncomfortable. Even if its intentions were wholly benign, its rise has and will continue to be deeply disruptive and inherently problematic for many countries. Its resource needs are too immense and its internal political pressures too explosive for China to prioritize winning hearts and minds abroad over its core objectives. It cannot realistically portray itself as a global benefactor. It may be worth curbing wolf warrior practices that are doing more harm than good to China's strategy, and this is probably what Xi has in mind. But don't expect a fundamental reorientation of Chinese policies at home or abroad anytime soon.
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https://washingtontimes-dc.newsmemory.com/?token=d3e30e3cb8be94f07729369c9bced6c7_60e84d9c_6d25b5f&selDate=20210709
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July 16, 2021
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A Picture of China's Expansion
The rapid pace of Chinese growth has expanded the country’s need for natural resources.
By: Geopolitical Futures
China's Expanding Influence
(click to enlarge)
The rapid pace of Chinese growth has expanded the country’s need for natural resources, especially farmland, timber and inputs needed for emerging technologies such as batteries destined for electric vehicles. This has compelled Chinese companies in the agriculture, forestry and mining sectors to acquire lands overseas on an extraordinary scale, particularly in Africa and Asia. According to Landmatrix, between 2011 and 2020 Beijing acquired control of 6.48 million hectares around the world, compared to the 1.56 million controlled by the U.K., the 860,000 by the United States and the 420,000 by Japan.
The increased Chinese influence all around the world has triggered fears and concerns among other states, since emerging and developing countries that accept China’s investments run the risk of falling into the so-called debt trap. For example, after joining the Belt and Road Initiative, Montenegro found itself in a situation where it couldn’t repay the debt it incurred for financing highway construction, and it was forced to ask for Western banks’ help. Countries in this same situation could become significantly exposed to Chinese geopolitical influence. That’s why some countries, like EU member states and Japan, are trying to implement countermeasures to balance Chinese investments in infrastructural projects and land acquisitions.
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By: Geopolitical Futures
China's latest outbreaks. Major COVID-19 outbreaks are being reported in at least 14 Chinese provinces, including key cities like Wuhan. Authorities have been compelled to shut down some traffic into Beijing. The country’s main tracking app is reportedly crashing under the strain. China going back into lockdown would only worsen the supply chain snarls impeding the global economic recovery, to say the least.
Progress in the Himalayas. Chinese and Indian commanders held another round of talks over the disputed border region in the Himalayas. The fact that the two sides were able to release a joint statement suggests some progress has been made, as does the mere fact that this summer’s squabbling season has thus far gone off without a major clash. A sustainable detente won’t be achieved, though, until both sides stop infrastructure development near the Line of Actual Control and until broader strategic tensions subside.
Meanwhile, India is reportedly deploying a handful of warships on a two-month tour of the South China Sea.
Berlin's message to Beijing. Germany deployed a warship to the South China Sea for the first time in nearly two decades. Berlin says the deployment is meant to send a message that it does not accept China’s territorial claims in the region.
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https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2021/08/report-china-hacking-russia-too/184426/
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https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/08/13/exclusive-lithuania-will-not-back-down-as-china-hints-at-war-says-mp/
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17647/china-plan-shut-out-world
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Back at the table. The U.S. and Chinese militaries are finally talking again – a first under the Biden administration, whose efforts to restart at least perfunctory negotiations with Beijing have largely been rebuffed. A video conference between deputy-level officers from each side was reportedly held last week. That didn’t stop the U.S. from sending another warship down the Taiwan Strait, nor China from launching live-fire drills shadowing the Indian-led Malabar exercises, which featured for the second time all four Quad members (the U.S., India, Australia and Japan).
Chinese oversight. China is reportedly planning to require all foreign vessels to check in with Chinese authorities before passing through any part of what Beijing considers its vast territorial waters. Given how hotly disputed many of its territorial claims are – and the fact that China is not precise about the extent of such claims – low-scale incidents seem likely.
Chinese overreach. Beijing is reportedly moving to crack down on online content that “maliciously” criticizes the state of the Chinese economy. China has good reason to try to prevent unfounded speculation from triggering some sort of financial crisis. The question is whether this will muzzle serious reporting and analysis about China’s many economic woes or the publishing of survey data, particularly in Hong Kong.
Second thoughts. The Democratic Republic of Congo is reviewing a $6 billion mining deal with Chinese investment firm Sicomines over concerns that the deal doesn’t benefit the DRC, which is the world’s largest producer of cobalt and Africa’s leading source of copper. This comes after the country approved the deployment of U.S special operations forces to help combat Islamic State-linked militants in the mineral-rich eastern region.
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Britain: Still Searching for Its Place in the World
London is once again embarking on a redefinition of its global role.
By: Geopolitical Futures
By Francesco Casarotto
In 1962, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson said, “Great Britain has lost an empire but not yet found a role.” Acheson’s comment perfectly described Britain’s position in the world since 1945, when London lost its place as the world’s premier maritime power to the United States. The fundamental geopolitical question that has faced Britain ever since is how to engage with Europe.
Its position on the periphery of Europe allows it to keep other European powers at arm’s length. Throughout its history, Britain has refrained from close integration with other European nations, the major exception being the period between the end of World War II and its exit from the European Union last year. Even as a member of the EU, it never shared Brussels’ vision for an “ever closer union,” fearing it would grow to be dominated by Germany, and opted out of critical integration initiatives like the Schengen zone and the euro. Today, Britain is once again embarking on a redefinition of its global role. In doing so, it’s looking to the Indo-Pacific and the so-called Global Britain strategy.
Britain’s Tilt to Asia
Last March, the British government published a paper called “Global Britain in a Competitive Age: the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy.” The document is meant to serve as a compass for Britain’s global strategy. The concept of “Global Britain” is aimed at least in part at restoring Britain’s role in the international system. It includes a redefinition of the main threats to British national interests and a new strategy to protect these interests.
Britain still sees Russia as the biggest threat to the security of Europe, and thus to itself, but the document released earlier this year calls China the “biggest state-based threat to the UK’s economic security.” That’s because Britain’s economic activity is steadily pivoting toward the Indo-Pacific, a region that London acknowledges as the engine of global economic growth and trade. It’s also a region where Beijing has outsized clout and influence over economic and trade activity.
It’s not hard to see why Britain is pivoting to the Indo-Pacific. Since its exit from the EU, trade between Britain and the bloc has consistently declined. According to the Office of National Statistics, between the fourth quarter of 2020 and the first quarter of 2021, goods imports from EU member states decreased by 21.7 percent while exports fell by 18.1 percent. While this contraction might be associated with the pandemic-induced downturn, there’s little doubt that the “Brexit effect” was also a contributor – especially because Britain’s trade with other markets in the same period was stronger. For example, goods imports from non-EU countries decreased by just 0.9 percent while exports grew by 0.4 percent. Moreover, according to figures set for release this week, Britain is expected to be left out of Germany’s top 10 trade partners for the first time since 1950. Prior to Brexit, it was Germany’s fifth-largest trade partner.
United Kingdom | EU vs. Extra-EU Trade
(click to enlarge)
Meanwhile, Britain’s economic ties to the Indo-Pacific have strengthened. In 2020, Britain signed new trade deals with Japan, Singapore and Vietnam, and last August, it began negotiations to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free trade deal encompassing Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. Meanwhile, it’s also enhancing economic and military cooperation with Australia and India, and drawing on its ties with former British Empire and current Commonwealth territories that have similar interests in the region.
Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership
(click to enlarge)
Considering the presence of several maritime chokepoints in the Indo-Pacific that can, if blocked, restrict access to these markets, China’s rise and increasing assertiveness is seen as a potential threat to this strategy. In other words, last March’s strategic review was a way of demonstrating Britain’s commitment to protecting the Indo-Pacific and containing the Chinese threat.
The Royal Navy’s Rejuvenation
Britain has also shown its commitment by deploying its Royal Navy to strategically important locations, joining a number of countries that have sent naval forces to the Indo-Pacific to secure sea lanes and contain Chinese ambitions. As part of Operation Fortis, Britain’s Carrier Strike Group 21, led by the new HMS Queen Elizabeth, departed from England in May for the Indo-Pacific. The group was joined by the USS The Sullivans destroyer and the Dutch HNLMS Evertsen frigate. In July, Britain’s defense minister also announced that two warships would be permanently deployed in the region by the end of the year.
The Royal Navy has long been a major part of Britain’s strategy to secure maritime trade, a critical component of any island nation’s economy. Therefore, the navy has been undergoing a rejuvenation in an effort to reverse a decadeslong decline that began around the end of the Cold War. Its deterioration was partly the result of Britain’s prioritization of its land forces with the beginnings of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It’s now hoping that the navy’s modernization will lend credibility to the Global Britain strategy.
In 2017 and 2019, the HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales aircraft carriers were commissioned. (Britain’s three Invincible-class carriers were retired in the early 2010s.) Capable of carrying up to 36 F-35 fighters, the two vessels are the highlights of the Royal Navy’s revamp. In addition, the Vanguard-class nuclear submarines will be replaced by the early 2030s with new Dreadnaught-class submarines, which, like their predecessors, will carry Trident II ballistic missiles. Last March, Britain announced that it would also replace its Type 45 destroyers with Type 83 destroyers by the late 2030s.
Global Britain is essentially an expansion of Britain’s interests and its ability to defend them. Its pivot to the Indo-Pacific and its naval modernization plans are examples of this expansion. However, “global” doesn’t mean “alone.” London still needs regional partners and, more important, the United States to contain China and defend its interests in the Indo-Pacific. The Royal Navy isn’t strong enough to neutralize potential threats to British interests. So while the strategic review contributes to London’s expanded global role, it won’t restore Britain as a maritime powerhouse.
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"In 2017 and 2019, the HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales aircraft carriers were commissioned."
Any idea how many Chinese hypersonic missiles it will take to neutralize all these carriers?
A dozen ??
Two ?
One per carrier ?
What a joke.
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British-Japanese defense. On Tuesday, the United Kingdom announced it would start formal talks with Japan to increase defense cooperation. The British defense minister called the efforts a testament to their will to defend “the rules-based international order,” a not-so-subtle jab at Chinese behavior in the Indo-Pacific. The dialogue is in keeping with London’s post-Brexit pivot toward Asia.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/three-warfares-doctrine-underpins-ccps-sprawling-campaign-to-infiltrate-the-west-report_4021847.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-09-30&mktids=b38cb8c4c244895704a07f1e63c0b756&est=KFQZh5kmIQNngTVigYowTTlrQaF%2BtTYVKXkRNZMXKs3N%2Bs2isxtiS3whkqeqRlrxyJ6f
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Y6HjWlCXXk
3 min video, what, how, why.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17830/china-growing-maritime-empire
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https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/alibaba-s-chip-success-risks-drawing-unwanted-us-attention?id=743c2bc617&e=de175618dc&uuid=eaccf889-bd99-45ee-9017-f7cc9ba2793a&mc_cid=c7f3d960d9&mc_eid=de175618dc
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ICYMI: Slovakia irked China this week when, along with the Czech Republic and Lithuania, it hosted a 66-member delegation of Taiwanese officials. That three-country trip yielded 18 different memorandums of cooperation in areas like "industrial innovation, research and development, as well as the space industry and internet security," Agence France-Presse reported this morning from Vilnius.
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Daily Memo: Philippines Accuses China of Blocking Its Ships
Meanwhile, Beijing is cooperating with global efforts to ease energy prices.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Chinese interference. Manila is accusing Beijing of sending three coast guard vessels to block Philippine supply ships from reaching Second Thomas Shoal, one of the few islets in the Spratly archipelago controlled by the Philippines. Philippine Foreign Secretary Teddy Locsin said the Chinese vessels used water cannons to force the Philippine ships, which were carrying food supplies, to turn back. No one was hurt in the incident, which took place Tuesday, according to Locsin. China’s Foreign Ministry said that the Philippine vessels entered the waters without China’s consent and that China was merely upholding its sovereignty.
Energy prices. China appears willing to join the U.S. in releasing crude reserves in order to stabilize global oil prices. A government spokeswoman said crude releases were already underway, without providing much detail. The Biden administration is also pushing India, Japan and South Korea to follow suit. Seoul appears ready to cooperate. Japan is being more circumspect. All of these countries, except the U.S., rely overwhelmingly on imported crude, so it's a tricky prospect.
U.S. concerns. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission issued its annual report to Congress. Two highlights that we’ve touched on in the past: To counter China’s massive and ever-growing anti-access/area denial umbrella, the U.S. needs its allies in Northeast Asia to be willing to host U.S. missile deployments. The commission also recommended more aggressive action to limit U.S. investment in China and restrictions on U.S.-listed Chinese stocks. China has its own concerns about dependence on U.S. capital.
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UAE, Chinese candidates get top Interpol posts
BY AYSE WIETING AND SUZAN FRASER ASSOCIATED PRESS ISTANBUL | Interpol on Thursday elected a polarizing candidate from the United Arab Emirates as its new president during the international law enforcement body’s annual General Assembly held in Istanbul.
Maj. Gen. Ahmed Naser al-Raisi, inspector general at the United Arab Emirates’ interior ministry and a member of Interpol’s executive committee, was elected for one four-year term, the global policing body announced. He won the vote despite past charges by human rights groups of involvement in torture and arbitrary detentions in the UAE.
Another controversial candidate, Hu Binchen, an official at China’s ministry of public security, was elected to join Interpol’s executive committee as a delegate from Asia. Mr. Hu was backed by China’s government, which is suspected of using the global police body to hunt down exiled dissidents and of disappearing its citizens.
The Lyon, France-based agency acts as an intermediary for national police services seeking to hunt down suspects outside of their borders. The elections of Mr. al-Raisi and Mr. Hu comes as the international body has come under criticism that its “red notice” system is being abused by government to go after exiled dissidents or political critics instead of criminals. Interpol’s charter however, prohibits the use of police notices for political reasons.
Interpol said Mr. al-Raisi was elected following three rounds of voting and received 68.9% of the votes cast in the final round.
“It’s an honor to have been elected to serve as the next president of Interpol,” the global police agency quoted Mr. al-Raisi as saying.
“Interpol is an indispensable organization built on the strength of its partnerships. It is this collaborative spirit, united in mission, that I will continue to foster as we work to make a safer world for people and communities.”
The vote for president was closely watched since the first-ever Chinese national to serve as president, Meng Hongwei, vanished midway through his four-year term on a return trip to China in 2018. It subsequently emerged that he had been detained and accused of bribery and other alleged domestic crimes.
Mr. al-Raisi is accused of torture and has criminal complaints against him in five countries, including in France, where Interpol has its headquarters, and in Turkey, where the election was held.
His election was met with joy in the UAE but drew angry responses from two Britons who filed the complaints.
“This is a sad day for international justice and global policing,” said Matthew Hedges, a British doctoral student who was imprisoned in the UAE for nearly seven months in 2018 on spying charges. Mr. Hedges says he was subjected to torture and months of solitary confinement.
Ali Issa Ahmad, a soccer fan who says he was tortured by the UAE security agency during the 2019 Asia Cup soccer tournament, said, “I will not stop my fight for justice for the torture and abuse I suffered under al-Raisi’s watch. I hope that Interpol will not allow him to abuse any other people.”
Their lawyer, Rodney Dixon, said his clients would “redouble their efforts to seek justice for their torture and pursue Gen. al-Raisi in national courts wherever he travels in his new position.”
Mr. Hedges was pardoned by UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, but Emirati officials still insist Mr. Hedges was spying for Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency, without offering definitive proof. He, his family and British diplomats have repeatedly denied the charges.
Separately, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, which includes legislators from around the world, expressed concern over Mr. Hu’s election to Interpol’s executive committee, saying it gives China “a green light to continue using Interpol as a vehicle for its repressive policies.” There was no immediate comment from Beijing.
In the UAE, now hosting the Expo 2020 world’s fair in Dubai and marking the 50th anniversary of its founding, Emirati officials celebrated Mr. al-Raisi’s selection. Interior Minister Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan said it demonstrated “the world’s confidence” in the oil-rich Gulf nation.
But Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, an activist with the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, warned Mr. al-Raisi’s election “represents the beginning of a dangerous era, with authoritarian regimes now able to dictate international policing.”
“No one is safe from the abuse of Interpol and authoritarian regimes,” Mr. Alwadaei said in a statement.
Mr. al-Raisi replaces Kim Jong Yan from South Korea, a vice president who was swiftly elected as a replacement to serve out the rest of Mr. Meng’s term.
About 470 police chiefs, ministers and other representatives from more than 160 countries attended the three-day meeting. Each country attending has one vote.
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https://news.yahoo.com/fear-china-could-win-us-053238219.html
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https://dailycaller.com/2021/11/27/world-health-organization-omicron-variant-nu-xi-coronavirus/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2360&tpcc%3D=newsletter&pnespid=pLRrFilMMaJD2qHPum.lEJuAokvyWJstJPq_kOZqrg1m0P4V6zI82TtExwsSXQ4JiNdSctmq
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https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/uganda-international-airport-china-default-debt-repayment-1881674-2021-11-28
Default. Suddenly, China owns their Airport.
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Uganda has issued a fomal document saying they are still within the seven year grace period.
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Uganda has issued a fomal document saying they are still within the seven year grace period.
Glad to have that updated. Still it shows China's intentions and methods and seven years goes by fast when you're broke and owe money.
How come we didn't get an airport in Iraq or Afghanistan? We didn't put in enough money, or we aren't trying to own and rule the world?
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https://tfiglobalnews.com/2021/11/03/african-military-regimes-are-chasing-china-out-of-africa/
interesting story. Unfamiliar source.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17981/end-china-regime
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https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2021/12/china-wants-write-tech-rules-5g-experts-say-s-big-problem/187255/
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/china-poised-establish-1st-ever-naval-base-atlantic-alarming-us-officials?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=322
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https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/12/report-apple-ceo-tim-cook-engineered-a-secret-275-billion-deal-with-china/
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/china-poised-establish-1st-ever-naval-base-atlantic-alarming-us-officials?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=322
From the zerohedge piece on Ukraine:
For 200 years, the United States has declared a Monroe Doctrine that puts our hemisphere off-limits to new colonizations.
Looks like that needs to include the west coast of Africa as well. The Biden Doctrine?
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New Threats Test New Zealand’s Approach to Chinese Encroachment
4 MIN READDec 9, 2021 | 16:09 GMT
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern (right) holds a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Beijing, China, on April 1, 2019.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern (right) holds a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Beijing, China, on April 1, 2019.
(KYODO NEWS/Naohiko Hatta/Pool)
New Zealand’s balance between securing its periphery and maintaining trade ties with China could shift toward the former over the next year as domestic defense pressure and Beijing’s military activities in the Pacific both accelerate. The New Zealand Defense Force published its Defence Assessment 2021 on Dec. 8, the first such report since 2016, in which the military called for shifting away from a “reactive risk management” approach to a proactive strategy that helps “pre-empt and prevent security threats.” This is notable because the country has long attempted to deftly balance its deep economic ties with China against its regional security concerns, which has often caused New Zealand to distance itself from the United States and Australia’s more proactive efforts to address China’s military advancement.
The report cited China’s rise as a strategic competitor in the region, including its militarization of the South China Sea, and rapidly modernizing military as justification for a New Zealand defense shift.
The potential for a dual-use facility in the Pacific was one of the top “concerning developments to watch” identified in the report. This was likely a veiled reference to China, which has been expanding its commercial and security relations in the Pacific Islands in recent years.
Internal political dynamics will likely still push New Zealand to keep its distance from major U.S. security agreements. New Zealand’s position on defense matters, especially during the tenure of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, is likely to remain split. Ardern will probably continue pushing for a reserved approach to strategic alignment with an emphasis on human rights issues, as the country’s military leaders push for a realization of the security threats from China’s maritime activities. Wellington is thus likely to remain hesitant to join U.S.-led security arrangements in the region, like the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (the Quad) and the recently signed AUKUS trilateral security pact.
Under Ardern, New Zealand has pushed a human rights-focused foreign policy, with the parliament in May passing a motion to condemn China’s human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. New Zealand also announced in October it wouldn’t send high-level officials to the Beijing Winter Olympics in February, but cited COVID-19 as the main concern.
Wellington has been hesitant to wield Western security groups, like the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing pact, as a platform for broader strategic competition with China. In April, the country’s foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta stated New Zealand did not want to use Five Eyes to address issues over Xinjiang, which came three months after New Zealand opted out of a Five Eyes statement condemning China’s mass arrests in Hong Kong.
Wellington may be forced to reconsider its conservative approach if Beijing accelerates military activities in the Pacific Islands. But New Zealand’s small military budget and heavy dependence on Chinese trade would limit the extent of this rethink. In recent years, China has been steadily increasing its influence in the Pacific Islands, a critical region for sea lines of communication. In February, for example, China’s WYW Holding Limited announced a plan to build New Daru City, including an industrial zone and a seaport, on a “build, operate, transfer” basis for Papua New Guinea. Should China step up its military engagement in the region via dual-use ports or more extensive surveillance installations, Wellington’s strategic shift toward counteracting Chinese regional dominance may also speed up. Still, New Zealand’s small military budget (approximately $3.7 billion for fiscal year 2021-2022), combined with its reliance on China as its top export destination, would make a strategic rethink limited in scope — likely focusing on deepening joint exercises and training with partners like the United States and Australia, as well as pursuing security cooperation (e.g. joint maritime access agreements) with Pacific Island nations.
New Zealand’s ability to outcompete China’s trade ties with the Pacific Islands is limited, given the small size of its market (5 million people with a GDP of $209 billion in 2019) compared with China’s (1.41 billion people with a GDP of $14.3 trillion in 2019).
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U.A.E. Shut Down China Facility Under U.S. Pressure, Emirates Says
Construction rattled relations between Washington and Gulf ally over concerns that Beijing was building military facility
Abu Dhabi's Khalifa Port.
PHOTO: SATISH KUMAR/REUTERS
By Warren P. Strobel
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Dec. 9, 2021 12:28 pm ET
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WASHINGTON—The United Arab Emirates recently ordered work halted on a Chinese facility in the country after American officials argued that Beijing intended to use the site for military purposes, a top U.A.E. official said Thursday.
Anwar Gargash, a diplomatic adviser to the U.A.E.’s leadership, said the Emirates ordered work stopped at the site at Washington’s behest. The U.A.E., he said, didn’t believe the facility was intended for military or security uses.
“We stopped the work on the facilities,” Mr. Gargash said. “But our position remains the same, that the facilities were not military facilities.” He didn’t elaborate on what the U.A.E. believed the facilities were to be used for.
“You hear the concerns of your ally and it would be foolish” not to take them into account, he said of the Biden administration.
Mr. Gargash’s remarks to the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, a think tank, appear to be the first public remarks by a U.A.E. official on the matter.
Anwar Gargash, a diplomatic adviser to the United Arab Emirates’s leadership, said the country ordered work stopped on a Chinese facility at Washington’s behest.
PHOTO: IAKOVOS HATZISTAVROU/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
The Biden administration’s push to persuade the Emirates to stop the base from being built reflects the challenges it faces in attempting to compete with Beijing globally.
The Wall Street Journal reported last month that U.S. intelligence agencies had discovered this spring the Chinese construction at a port near the U.A.E. capital of Abu Dhabi, where China’s giant Cosco shipping conglomerate operates a commercial container terminal.
The discovery rattled relations between the Biden administration and the U.A.E., one of Washington’s top allies in the Gulf, and led to a series of high-level meetings and intelligence-sharing between the two countries. At U.S. urging, construction at the site was recently halted, the Journal reported.
U.S. and U.A.E. officials haven’t disclosed the precise nature of the facility under construction.
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https://nypost.com/2021/12/13/how-china-uses-the-un-and-who-for-its-own-nefarious-ends/?fbclid=IwAR20imTluyQpc1UjWTqZX_qgEVNY1ZtrDGKncbus2g2DQXwKGORdX6w_ITs
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Initial impression is good for us for sticking up for security of our tech!
https://dailycaller.com/2021/12/14/united-arab-emirates-weapons-deal-china-persian-gulf/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2360&tpcc%3D=newsletter&pnespid=sqhtEzkWaP9GyOWY9my5AZyJsh2kCYoqMu3h2rI4.htmmhjj7HhR2ZwcdekyivYGLwpa_zKY
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China in the Balkans. China National Technical Import & Export Corp. and Powerchina Resources are planning to invest 130 million euros ($147 million) to build a wind park in Bosnia and Herzegovina with the capacity to produce 236.6 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year. On Thursday, the European Parliament passed a resolution denouncing China’s growing influence in the Western Balkans.
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https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2021/12/amazon-obama-press-secretary-worked-chinese-daniel-greenfield/
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/amazon-partnered-with-china-propaganda-arm-win-beijings-favor-document-shows-2021-12-17/
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Regarding Dec 11 Crafty post'
I would like to give credit where credit is due. This appears to be a Biden Accomplishment, two words I have not previously used together.
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The Guardian: Remember the Uyghers
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/14/the-guardian-view-on-chinas-winter-olympics-remember-the-uyghurs
Remember them?? How about DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT, especially if you're complicit.
What about Tibet?
https://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2020/09/china-tibet-and-the-uighurs-a-pattern-of-genocide/
https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/tibetans-uyghurs-protest-in-paris-over-china-s-rights-violations-121121100160_1.html
What about freedom promised in Hong Kong?
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/hong-kong-freedoms-democracy-protests-china-crackdown
How about Taiwanese, living everyday in fear:
https://www.independentsentinel.com/xi-threatens-biden-over-taiwan-help-the-us-will-get-burnt/
What about the Chinese people themselves, living under oppression every day:
https://www.visiontimes.com/2021/01/19/the-tory-report-chinas-horrific-human-rights-violations-over-the-past-five-years.html
How about the origin of Covid and non-compliance with all inquiries?
https://www.city-journal.org/new-evidence-for-lab-leak-hypothesis-of-covid-origins
How about the doctors and scientists that wanted to sound the alarm on a new corona virus?
https://www.foxnews.com/world/chinese-doctor-critics-who-first-raised-the-alarm-over-covid-19-vanishes
What about technology theft?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/06/china-technology-theft-fbi-biggest-threat
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What does it take to offend the people of the world?
Biden response: He's not sending Jill and her entourage to the games. 'Cause that's what is most important to Xi??
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18049/china-ultimate-genocide
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https://www.newsmax.com/world/globaltalk/hong-kong-tiananmen-square-memorials-removed/2021/12/24/id/1049839/
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/china-now-controls-africa_4165363.html?utm_source=uschinaia&utm_campaign=uschina-2021-12-24&utm_medium=email
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18081/germany-china-business
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https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2022/01/ea8409ef9f4c-japan-australia-to-hold-summit-thurs-sign-defense-agreement.html
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/jan/4/global-reach-china-expands-port-and-military-base-/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=morning&utm_term=newsletter&utm_content=morning&bt_ee=VmzWgTgzy3MzYxWA%2FJdeuZIkzS5QyneEA4M5u5azOM8ByY2oaQp%2FOQLanUXEh40U&bt_ts=1641379533326
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Sri Lanka seeks Chinese debt reform amid crisis
Beijing has island in economic grasp
BY KRISHAN FRANCIS ASSOCIATED PRESS COLOMBO, SRI LANKA | The president of debt-ridden Sri Lanka on Sunday asked China for the restructuring of its loans and access to preferential credit for imports of essential goods, as the island nation struggles in the throes of its worst economic crisis, partly because of Beijingfi nanced projects that don’t generate revenue.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa told visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi that it would be “a great relief to the country if attention could be paid on restructuring the debt repayments as a solution to the economic crisis that has arisen in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to a statement from his office.
Mr. Rajapaksa asked Mr. Wang for a concessionary credit facility for imports so that industries can run without disruption, the statement said. He also requested assistance to enable Chinese tourists to travel to Sri Lanka within a secure bubble.
Mr. Wang and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, the president’s brother, later visited Colombo’s Port City, a reclaimed island developed with Chinese investment, where they opened a promenade and inaugurated the sailing of 65 boats to commemorate the 65 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
In his speech at the Port City, Mr. Wang said a persistent and unchecked pandemic has made economic recovery difficult and the two countries must take the anniversary of the diplomatic ties to work closer together.
He did not elaborate nor announce any relief measures.
Mr. Wang arrived in Sri Lanka on Saturday from the Maldives on the last leg of a multinational trip that also took him to Eritrea, Kenya and the Comoros in East Africa.
Sri Lanka faces one of its worst economic crises, with foreign reserves down to around $1.6 billion, barely enough for a few weeks of imports. It also has foreign debt obligations exceeding $7 billion in 2022, including repayment of bonds worth $500 million in January and $1 billion in July.
The declining foreign reserves are partly blamed on infrastructure projects built with Chinese loans that don’t make money. China loaned money to build a seaport and airport in the southern Hambantota district, in addition to a wide network of roads.
Central Bank figures show that Chinese loans to Sri Lanka total around $3.38 billion, not including loans to state-owned businesses, which are accounted for separately and thought to be substantial.
“Technically we can claim we are bankrupt now,” said Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, principal researcher at the Point Pedro Institute of Development. “When you have your net external foreign assets have been in the red, that means you are technically bankrupt.”
The situation has left households grappling with severe shortages. People wait in long lines to buy essential goods such as milk powder, cooking gas and kerosene. Prices have increased sharply, and the Central Bank says the inflation rate rose to 12.1% by the end of December from 9.9% in November. Food inflation increased to over 22% in the same period.
Mr. Wang’s visit has again highlighted the regional power struggle between China and India, Sri Lanka’s closest neighbor, which considers the island part of its domain.
China considers Sri Lanka to be a critical link in its Belt and Road global infrastructure initiative.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (left) met Sunday in Sri Lanka with Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, who asked for a restructuring of its loans for projects under Beijing’s Belt and Road infrastructure initiative. ASSOCIATED PRESS
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WSJ
The last few months have been a whirlwind for Australia’s defense diplomacy as the South Pacific nation of 26 million braces itself against Chinese advances in the region. The latest example is Canberra’s new Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) with Tokyo, which makes it easier for Australia’s military to conduct operations out of Japan, and vice versa.
The new pact sets the legal terms for visiting forces in each country, and is notable because Tokyo has been reluctant to coordinate closely on military matters with any nation except the U.S. The RAA will give Aussie forces more access to Japanese territory, facilitating joint operations in the Northern Pacific, including contested waters in the East and South China Seas. Japanese forces can exercise with Australia in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific.
China’s behavior under President Xi Jinping has cratered its previously stable relationship with Australia. A rift over Canberra’s decision not to use Huawei technology because of espionage and security risks accelerated amid the Covid-19 pandemic, when Beijing’s diplomats bludgeoned Prime Minister Scott Morrison for calling for an inquiry into the coronavirus’s origins. China began a campaign of economic sanctions against the country’s exports, demanded Australia’s press and representatives cease criticism of Chinese policies, detained one Australian citizen and put a second on trial.
Australia has also had a front-row seat to China’s naval buildup, which could be used to threaten Australia’s trade further if it doesn’t bend the knee politically. Australian defense planners are watching China’s strategic inroads in Pacific island nations closer to Australia’s borders like the Solomon Islands, Kiribati and Vanuatu.
The Morrison government has responded with creativity. It rejoined naval exercises with the so-called Quad of India, Japan and the U.S. in 2020. Then came the Aukus submarine technology sharing agreement with the U.S. and U.K. last September. That was followed by a major contract with South Korea to fortify Australian artillery, signed in December.
The U.S. remains the main Pacific military counterweight to China, whose military budget far exceeds Japan and Australia’s combined. Yet in a conflict over Taiwan, Australia and Japan would be the two nations most likely to aid Taipei besides the U.S. This defense agreement strengthens that deterrence and contributes to a more stable Pacific.
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A FRIEND WHO LIVED IN CHINA FOR SOME TIME SAYS THE WORD TO LISTEN FOR IS “HARMONY”: FAUCI & “TOP SCIENTISTS” LIED TO US ABOUT POSSIBLE COVID LEAK THEORIES – VIVA FREI VLAWG. [VIDEO]
His comments on this, filtered through my memory:
One of the nation’s top scientists agreed with lying to the public in order to preserve “international harmony”. Exact words. “Harmony” is just about the most Chinese trump card against objective reality you can find. You might be telling the truth, but if you are “disharmonious”, off to the laogai with you. I hadn’t known that exat term was used when this was first reported. Knowing it now, it’s the clearest confession of loyalty to PR China that I have ever seen from a government official, to include Clinton taking cash from Chinese fixers and Swalwell banging a hot Chinese spy.
So, there you have it. To quote Kipling: “They sold us, and delivered us bound to our foe.”
12:49 am by Sarah Hoyt
Pj media instapundit
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(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/096/872/166/original/ce27422e73b90169.png)
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Europe Brings a Lawsuit to a China Fight
Beijing punishes tiny Lithuania, and the EU sends in the lawyers.
By The Editorial Board
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Updated Jan. 29, 2022 12:29 pm ET
Sometimes we wonder what world European leaders think they’re living in. The European Union on Thursday responded to China’s trade assault against its member state Lithuania by filing a . . . complaint at the World Trade Organization. Talk about bringing a quill pen to a gun fight.
The EU said it will challenge China’s “discriminatory trade practices” against Lithuania. “Launching a WTO case is not a step we take lightly. However, after repeated failed attempts to resolve the issue bilaterally, we see no other way forward,” EU trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said. “The EU is determined to act as one and act fast against measures in breach of WTO rules, which threaten the integrity of our Single Market.” How “determined” does that really sound?
Though China denies it, Beijing has effectively imposed a trade embargo on Lithuania after Vilnius upgraded ties with Taiwan. China’s restrictions on imports, exports and services have also hit other European goods that use Lithuanian components. Reuters reported in December that the Chinese government had pressured a German car-parts maker to stop using Lithuanian-produced parts in its supply chain.
The Chinese foreign ministry responded Thursday that the EU’s complaint is “groundless and inconsistent” and warned Brussels to be “wary” of Lithuania, as if the tiny Baltic nation is the trade menace. Beijing claims its beef with Vilnius is political and not economic, but the Chinese Communist Party uses trade as a political weapon. It is also punishing Australia for daring to call for an independent probe into the origins of Covid-19.
Going to the WTO has symbolic value, but it isn’t known for speedily resolving disputes. The EU and China can begin “consultations” that could drag on for months. If those fail, the case would go to a WTO panel subject to appeal. The whole process could take years, and meanwhile Lithuania suffers.
The only language China understands here is comparable economic force. If Beijing won’t stop punishing Lithuania, EU trade retaliation will send a stronger message than a legal filing at the WTO. Killing the EU-China investment deal, agreed to in principle more than a year ago but still not ratified, would get Beijing’s attention.
If the EU can’t stand up for its single market to defend its weakest members, then what good is it?
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What Lessons is China Taking from the Ukraine War?
From battlefield concepts to geopolitics, Beijing is sure to be watching with avid interest—and some chagrin.
By THOMAS CORBETT, MA XIU and PETER W. SINGER
APRIL 3, 2022 08:00 AM ET
COMMENTARY
THE CHINA INTELLIGENCE
Operation Desert Storm was a turning point in modern Chinese military history. As military planners with the People’s Liberation Army watched U.S. and allied forces make short work of the world’s fourth-largest military (on paper), equipped with many of the same systems as the PLA, it became obvious that China’s quantitatively superior but qualitatively lacking massed infantry would stand no chance against the combination of modern weaponry, C4ISR, and joint operations seen in Iraq. The result was new military concepts and over two decades of often-difficult reforms, which produced the modern, far more capable, “informationized” PLA of today.
Today, the PLA is no doubt closely observing its Russian contemporaries in Ukraine as they under-perform in multiple areas, from failing to take key targets or claim air supremacy to running low on fuel and supplies and possibly experiencing morale collapse, and surely taking away lessons that will shape its own future. Of note, Russia’s experience appears to have confirmed many of China’s recent assumptions behind its investments, such as the utility of unmanned aerial systems in high-intensity conflict, as well as the necessity for the PLA’s 2015 reforms, which aim to fix many of the issues driving Russian failure that the PLA recognizes in itself.
Of the many issues that have contributed to Russia’s physical battlefield woes in Ukraine, one of the most important has been the lack of effective joint or combined arms operations, widely considered essential to any effective modern fighting force. Russia’s poor level of coordination between its various services and branches can only be generously described as incompetent. For example, it has repeatedly failed to provide effective air support to its ground forces or deconflict its air and air-defense forces to avoid friendly fire.
The PLA has long had its own serious issues with joint operations. Traditionally dominated by the Army, the PLA had little success developing a truly joint force until a series of sweeping reforms in 2015 that replaced the former Army-dominated system with a series of joint theater commands. The PLA is thus aware of its own shortcomings and taking steps to fix it, but likely remains far off from being able to conduct truly effective, seamless joint operations. Efforts to conduct joint exercises are becoming more common, but most senior PLA leaders are still relatively inexperienced with joint operations, and even new officers typically do not receive joint education below the corps level. Further, it remains to be seen how far these reforms will go or to what extent they will “stick;” indeed, one reason the PLA did not attempt these reforms until 2015 was because of strong institutional pushback from the Army, whose leaders wished to retain their dominant status.
To China, the Ukraine invasion will reinforce the importance of joint and combined arms operations, while also making clear that such operations are highly difficult to conduct in practice. Russia’s stumbles may give the PLA pause as to whether it is truly ready for all the joint elements that a successful Taiwan seizure would require, including close coordination between sea, air, and land forces.
Another issue which has contributed to Russia’s military woes is the low quality of its conscript force. Indeed, Ukraine has even turned images of Russian POW conscripts being allowed to call their mothers into a weapon in its information warfare. While some militaries, such as Israel, have managed to maintain a high-quality conscript force, a full-time professional force is generally considered to hold numerous substantial advantages, which is why most of the Western world now uses a voluntary recruitment model. Despite the copious hyper-masculine recruiting videos which so excited certain Western politicians, Russia has struggled to attract enough voluntary recruits to move away from its current system of 12-month conscription.
Despite some recent success in recruiting a higher-quality, more-educated voluntary force, the PLA has likewise failed to move away from conscription. It presently requires about 660,000 two-year conscripts, many lacking even partial high-school education, to fill out its ranks. While this does not bode well for the PLA’s ability to conduct complex operations, one area where the PLA may have an advantage over its Russian counterparts is in the area of motivation. The Russian conscripts are not just poorly trained, but also suffer from low morale. Many among the invasion force did not know why they were going to Ukraine, or even that they were going to Ukraine at all. By contrast, the PLA places heavy emphasis on personnel political education, and Chinese conscripts have been raised from an early age to believe in the necessity of “liberating” Taiwan. Still, the PLA is surely watching with concern as a conscript force with at least some similarities to its own fares so poorly, and will likely redouble their campaign to attract more, and preferably higher-quality, voluntary recruits.
Russia also allowed its adversary to dominate the information environment. Due to a combination of overly optimistic assumptions about the political weakness of its foe and logistical reliance on its target’s own communications networks, Russia never launched the long-feared effort to take down Ukrainian communications networks. Putin’s strategists wrongly believed that its own messaging and rapid military advances would go viral across these networks and aid in collapsing the Ukrainian state. As well, many of Russia’s units turned out to need access to Ukrainian civilian networks for their own operations.
Instead, the Zelenskyy regime turned the tables on Russia, winning the information war inside both Ukraine and the West, and in so doing, transforming the greater war. Deft Ukrainian government messaging and a mobilized civilian populace created a new sense of domestic unity, as well as mobilizing essential military aid and historic economic sanctions from a widened network of global allies. In turn, Russian use of civilian networks made it susceptible to intercepts and geolocated targeting of its units. The PLA has streamlined coordination between its cyber, electronic warfare, space, and information warfare efforts through the recent creation of the Strategic Support Force, indicating it recognizes the importance of information dominance. It can be expected to redouble its efforts at cyber/information warfare, as well as encrypted communications, to ensure its own operations don’t suffer the same flaws.
Another ongoing issue has been Russia’s serious problems with poor logistics. The sight of broken-down or abandoned vehicles has become common as Russian forces run out of fuel and other vital supplies. To its credit, the PLA has also been rapidly reforming and modernizing its logistical system as part of the same broad set of 2015 reforms. As part of these reforms, the PLA has emphasized its logistics organizations and created the Joint Logistics Support Force. This force’s training has focused on cooperation with other branches of the PLA, and it has cut its teeth training to establish supply lines during natural disasters. In 2018, the JLSF launched its first major exercise, dubbed “Joint Logistics Support Mission 2018,” featuring medical drones, helicopter-dropped refueling depots, and operations in harsh and remote terrain.
However, while the outward manifestation of many of the issues faced by the Russian military appear to be logistical in nature, the true heart of the issue may be corruption. There are reports that before the invasion Russian military officers sold off their fuel and food supplies, and that these corrupt practices may be responsible for the stalling of a Russian tank column outside Kyiv. In this regard, the PLA has much to fear. Corruption has plagued the PLA for decades, with some PLA officers bluntly stating in 2015 that it could undermine China’s ability to wage war. Reportedly, more than 13,000 PLA officers have been punished in some capacity for corruption since Xi Jinping took power, including more than a hundred generals. This was a particular problem in the logistics sector, where there are more opportunities for corruption and links to the civilian economy.
Yet, despite the reorganization of the PLA and widespread prosecution of corruption cases, it still appears to be a major issue. Anti-corruption efforts are ongoing, with Chinese Gen. Zhang Youxia recently calling for innovative measures to keep up the fight. But the fact that Fu Zhenghua, the man brought in to take down the corrupt former security chief Zhou Yongkang, is himself now under investigation for corruption does not bode well for the long-term effectiveness of China’s efforts. The troubled invasion of Ukraine provides a stark real-world example to Xi, the CCP, and PLA about the impact corruption can have on military effectiveness, and will no doubt cause them to redouble their anti-corruption efforts with a newfound urgency. However given its similar authoritarian system and emphasis on career advancement through patronage, systemic corruption may be baked into the system.
Finally, there is the strategic issue of Beijing’s reaction to the global sanctions that have hit the Russian ruble and economy. The swift and severe economic retaliation of the U.S., EU, and others took Moscow by surprise. Even more unexpected was the rapid withdrawal of almost 500 global corporations, pushed on by an effective effort at naming and shaming them into acting to protect their own brands. A longer-term effort targeting essential elements of Russia’s defense industry will hamstring it for years.
While China will benefit from Russia’s increasing reliance on its goods and services, Beijing can be expected to retool its geo-economic strategy to reduce its vulnerability to a similar nightmare scenario. For example, it will likely redouble its efforts to promote its Cross-Border Interbank Payment System—an alternative to the SWIFT international banking system—among its strategic partners and foreign aid recipients in the developing world.
Likewise, China’s recent “Dual Circulation” economic strategy appears to be aimed at countering a decoupling from China’s trade partners. Further, Beijing has surely observed how easy it was for corporations to withdraw from Moscow. If China is to be exposed to the risk of global sanctions and corporate withdrawal, so too are countries and corporations exposed to dependence on the world’s second-largest economy, and thus the government will likely take efforts to make any sanctions or corporate turn against China as painful a prospect as possible. Either way, policymakers in Washington need to understand that the sanctions being used today against Russia are unlikely be as effective the next time around, as China is not just a different economy, but also will learn from the current conflict and adjust accordingly.
For all these valuable lessons, there is little doubt that China has been watching the ongoing conflict with no small amount of chagrin. Chinese leaders are reportedly surprised and unsettled by the poor military performance of its Russian partners, Ukraine’s resistance, and the level of solidarity from the international community. The image of a much smaller state, against all odds, successfully resisting a larger neighbor surely sits uneasily in the psyches of CCP apparatchiks and PLA officials. It also counters the narrative of overwhelming force and grim inevitability Beijing has sought to instill in the psyches of the Taiwanese people. It is notable that early attempts by Chinese state media to capitalize on the Ukraine invasion in precisely this fashion, illustrating how the United States will surely abandon Taiwan when the chips are down, quietly ceased after the initial days of the war, when it became apparent that the U.S. was not, in fact, abandoning Ukraine. Beyond purely psychological factors, Ukraine also offers a blueprint for successful resistance via asymmetric warfare very similar to Taiwan’s proposed Overall Defense Concept, perhaps giving a jolt to a plan that most analysts agree offers Taiwan its best chance of success against the PLA but has stalled out in the face of bureaucratic resistance.
While China and the PLA will surely watch Ukraine closely and try to take away the correct lessons, there is one uncomfortable parallel which China may be unable to avoid by the very nature of its authoritarian system. The runup to the Ukraine invasion featured multiple strategic miscalculations by Putin, driven at least in part by him surrounding himself with the yes-men who inevitably cling to authoritarian leaders, eager to please and afraid to speak truth to power. This was obvious in the visibly uncomfortable reaction of Russia’s SVR (foreign intelligence) chief as he was publicly pressured to agree with Putin in the days leading up to the war, as well as in the sackings and arrests of multiple military and intelligence officials after the war turned poorly. Authoritarian leaders have systemic problems in gaining reliable intelligence, oftentimes magnified by their overconfidence in their own singular understanding of a situation. As China continues its slide away from a system of intra-Party consensus toward a one-man cult of personality in which dissenting views are increasingly unwelcome, Xi is bound to encounter the same problem. It is unclear whether Xi will learn this lesson from Putin, or make his own similar miscalculations in the future towards China’s own neighbors.
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China’s Digital Yuan, Biggest Threat to the West, Is Overshadowed by Russian War, Kyle Bass Warns
By Frank Fang and Jan Jekielek April 17, 2022 Updated: April 17, 2022biggersmaller Print
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Russia’s war in Ukraine is obscuring one very alarming threat posed by the Chinese regime: its system of paperless money, warned hedge fund manager Kyle Bass.
“It is, I think, the single largest threat to the West in the last 50 years. And it’s being overshadowed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” Bass said during a recent interview on EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program.
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China’s Digital Yuan, Biggest Threat to the West, Is Overshadowed by Russian War, Kyle Bass WarnsKyle Bass: China’s Digital Currency Is a Blackmail Weapon; Beijing Facing Grave Financial and Demographic Crisis
The Chinese digital currency, variously known as the digital yuan, digital renminbi, e-CYN, and e-yuan—is currently being developed by the Chinese regime through its central bank. Since the e-yuan is backed by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), it is a central bank digital currency (CBDC) or simply the digital version of China’s fiat currency.
So far, pilot tests of the e-yuan are being carried out in more than 20 different Chinese cities and the money was made available to visiting foreigners through a mobile app for the first time during the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
“This isn’t a simple digital payment app. This is an app that tracks where you are, what your name is, what your social security number is, [and] what all of your identifiers are. It has the geo-locating ability,” he explained.
Bass explained once the Chinese digital money is fully-developed and is made available to everyone outside of China, the Chinese regime could seek out certain e-yuan users, such as those in financial trouble, and corrupt them.
“Image if the Chinese government had access to every Tom, Dick, and Harry in America, and in Europe, and in Canada,” he said. “Imagine if they could cross-run an algorithm that says, let’s look for U.S. government employees that have Tinder that are short on cash—and maybe they’re married—and we can corrupt them immediately.”
“It gives them the ramp to corrupt anyone and everyone around the world that’s corruptible, which is a real national security problem,” he added. “So it’s a way they can export digital authoritarianism.”
China’s global rollout of its e-yuan has a very specific agenda, Bass said, which is to reduce its dependence on the U.S. dollar.
“About 87 percent of global transactions that China settles are settled in dollars,” he said. “They’re desperately short energy, they’re desperately short food, they’re desperately short basic materials, they have to go buy these things every day around the world, and no one trusts their currency, and they still have a closed capital account.”
“And so what do they have to do? They have to use their [U.S.] dollars to do so,” he said.
More than 80 countries in the world, including the United States, are exploring the issuance of CBDC, according to tracking by the Washington-based think tank Atlantic Council. So far Nigeria is among nine countries that have launched digital forms of their currencies.
In March, the White House issued an outline of President Joe Biden’s executive order on digital assets. The president was “placing urgency” on research and development of a U.S. CBDC, and issuing one was “deemed in the national interest.”
Several U.S. lawmakers have been keen to see the threat posed by the e-yuan properly addressed. In May last year, Reps. French Hill (R-Ark.) and Jim Himes (D-Conn.) introduced the 21st Century Dollar Act (H.R.3506), which would require the U.S. Treasury Department to include in a report for Congress any risks to the U.S. dollar posed by the digital yuan.
In March, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and eight of her Republican colleagues introduced the Say No To the Silk Road Act (S.3784). If enacted, the legislation would require the U.S. Commerce Department and U.S. Trade Representative’s office to file reports on the e-yuan.
Additionally, the U.S. State Department would be required to put a warning on its website, warning U.S. citizens traveling to China “about the dangers of the digital yuan,” according to the text of the bill.
“There are some senators that you’ll see in the coming weeks are going to launch legislation to outlaw its use. And I believe that, that those that legislation must happen,” Bass said.
“The West needs to convene, and we need to ban it immediately,” he added. “You can’t have a little bit of cancer, you either have cancer, you don’t have cancer.”
Frank Fang
Frank Fang
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Frank Fang is a Taiwan-based journalist. He covers news in China and Taiwan. He holds a master's degree in materials science from Tsinghua University in Taiwan.
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Avoiding risk. There are some indications that Chinese firms will halt operations in Russia and Ukraine to reduce political pressure from both Beijing and Washington amid the war in Ukraine. Relatedly, Chinese regulators are reportedly looking at ways to protect overseas assets in case the country faces sanctions like those imposed on Russia in the future.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/chinese-embassy-pressures-local-officials-to-block-shen-yun-performances-in-mexico_4451452.html?utm_source=China&utm_campaign=uschina-2022-05-07&utm_medium=email&est=9NS8RxlKGE3qyI1%2BN5u0iNNx61%2B4WivFyUywAeGqn1fgQ1j4bKz6rI0FUL2y1NnQLXNC
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A Beijing-Backed Information Campaign Targets the Western Rare Earth Industry
5 MIN READJun 30, 2022 | 09:00 GMT
A newly uncovered campaign by Chinese threat actors trying to boost opposition to Western rare earth processing plants showcases that China's information campaign is now expanding to target strategic industries. China's threat actors created fake accounts on social media to criticize rare earth mining companies and planned manufacturing facilities in Texas, U.S. cybersecurity firm Mandiant reported June 28. Mandiant, which has named the Chinese information campaign DRAGONBRIDGE, said it identified accounts used as part of the scheme on multiple social media channels, including Facebook and Twitter, as well as at least one online forum.
The campaign first targeted Australian rare earth mining and processing firm Lynas Rare Earths with accounts posing as local residents concerned about Lynas' proposed light rare earth separation plant in Hondo, Texas. In February 2021, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded Lynas a $30.4 million contract under the Defense Production Act to help build the plant. DRAGONBRIDGE's fake accounts claimed that building the plants would cause irreversible environmental damage and criticized the Biden administration's March 2022 decision to invoke the Defense Production Act to boost the U.S. supply of critical minerals. DRAGONBRIDGE's accounts also quoted and reposted genuine statements from U.S. political figures criticizing or opposing the planned facility to amplify the threat actor's messaging.
Subsequent to the campaign against Lynas, DRAGONBRIDGE-linked social media accounts began targeting Canadian rare earth mining company Appia Rare Earths & Uranium Corp. and USA Rare Earth, the latter of which bills itself as the first fully integrated mine-to-magnet rare earth company based completely outside China.
While this specific disinformation campaign has had a negligible impact, it signals a tactic that China could use more in the future. Mandiant pointed out that the most recent campaign by DRAGONBRIDGE differs from previous information campaigns China has carried out in the United States in two key ways. First, the campaign used more nuanced tactics than previous Chinese information campaigns. China sought to manipulate online social media discourse to increase concern over the environmental and health impacts of Western rare earth mining and processing plants. The accounts also tried to leverage statements and political positions undertaken by figures like U.S. President Joe Biden's use of the Defense Production Act. While China has largely failed to significantly boost opposition to the plants thus far, the decision to exploit political divisions in the United States to try to manipulate online discourse is something that China could expand on in future campaigns.
Second, the campaign targeted an industry of significant strategic interest to China. Previous information campaigns focused on supporting China's geopolitical narrative or targeting Chinese nationals (or ethnic Chinese population groups) abroad. China has an effective global monopoly over the rare earth industry, producing around an estimated 70% to 80% of the world supply. Rare earth are of extreme importance to national security due to the importance of magnets and other rare earth products in defense applications, including precision-guidance systems, night-vision goggles, stealth technology and batteries.
China threatened to block rare earth exports to the United States during the U.S.-China trade war and the United States and other Western countries have sought to break China's dominance in the sector by establishing new mining and processing facilities, like Lynas' proposed facility in Texas.
This highlights how China's information campaigns in Western countries are becoming more sophisticated, even if they are still largely rudimentary and unsuccessful compared to Russian information operations. In the campaign against the rare earth industry, China is borrowing tactics from Russia, which has long used information campaigns and other tactics to support environmental movements in Europe and North America. For example, during the initial debate on the use of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," to produce oil and natural gas in Europe — which would have offset Russian natural gas exports to Europe — during the early 2010s, Russian media outlets and online accounts supported anti-fracking campaigns and amplified anti-fracking discourse online. Most European countries indeed wound up banning fracking. Russia probably found more success than China in part due to Russians' closer cultural connections to Western audiences and the stronger anti-fracking movement in Europe it managed to tap into. Moving forward, China could seek to emulate Russia by targeting other strategic industries, such as biotechnology and artificial intelligence, that have more domestic opposition in the West due to environmental and ethical concerns as a way to boost China's edge in those industries. China will also probably continue to expand its online targeting of Mandarin-, Wu- and Yue-speaking communities in the West and Chinese- and Taiwanese-Americans to stoke anti-U.S. and anti-Taiwan sentiment. The risk of more concerted Chinese efforts to carry out broader and more sophisticated information campaigns is likely much higher in places like Taiwan and India, which hold much greater strategic importance to Beijing and thus make it more likely that Beijing will support riskier information campaigns that could provoke retaliation and potentially limited Western sanctions.
In September 2021, FireEye (now Mandiant) reported how Chinese threat actors aimed to stoke protests and dissent in the United States, frequently using Chinese languages. Given the growth of anti-Asian hate crimes in the United States, China may find more success in exploiting such social discord going forward.
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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-62064506
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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-62064506
:roll:
Meanwhile Hunter's laptop goes uninvestigated.
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FA is the globalist/Trilateral Commission wing of the Deep State. Caveat Lector:
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What to Expect From a Bolder Xi Jinping
Get Ready for a More Ambitious Chinese Foreign Policy
By Yun Sun
July 28, 2022
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/what-expect-bolder-xi-jinping
As China prepares for this fall’s 20th Party Congress, the odds grow stronger by the day that Chinese President Xi Jinping will emerge from the meeting having secured a third term in office. This will mark a break with Chinese precedent since Deng Xiaoping wrote a two-term limit into the country’s constitution in 1982—a limit that was removed in 2018. Xi, who took office in 2013 and is now 69, could foreseeably extend his tenure well into the 2030s.
The consolidation of Xi’s rule comes as his administration faces significant headwinds both at home and abroad. China’s zero-COVID policy has provoked an economic slowdown and popular discontent. Its rivalry with the United States is intensifying, and Xi’s alignment with Russian President Vladimir Putin has created more problems than Beijing bargained for. Under these circumstances, it might be reasonable to think the Chinese leader will recalibrate once his political future is assured. But those who expect Xi to moderate his policies after the 20th Party Congress are likely to be disappointed.
Xi’s personality and political beliefs leave little room for a reconsideration, let alone a reversal, of his vision for the country. What he has described as the “China Dream”—or the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”—sees the Chinese Communist Party leading China’s reemergence as a great power. Xi has shown signs of restraint since Beijing hosted the Winter Olympics in February, prioritizing stability over bold action that would risk undermining his agenda at the Party Congress, but his frustration with China’s strategic position and domestic troubles has been mounting. When the political pressure is lifted after the Party Congress, Xi seems poised to revamp his assertive foreign policy, intervening more directly in disputes on China’s periphery and pushing more forcefully against the United States’ presence in the Pacific. Xi will be back with a vengeance—and he will have uncontested authority and the full power of the Chinese state behind him.
BEIJING’S BAD YEAR
So far, 2022 has not gone well for China. Beijing had hoped that the competition with the United States would slow down under President Joe Biden, but instead it has accelerated as Washington reinforces its network of alliances and partnerships to more effectively counter China. In an attempt to reduce its isolation, Beijing strengthened its strategic alignment with Moscow. Xi and Putin declared “no limit” to the two countries’ cooperation during Putin’s visit to China for the Winter Olympics—and Putin tested this proposition with his invasion of Ukraine, evidently aware that he was exploiting Chinese naiveté while counting on Chinese support. The Russian war triggered international outrage and sanctions, complicating China’s foreign relations and casting doubt on the wisdom of Xi’s decision to align closely with Russia. Skeptical views of China’s Russia policy have circulated on Chinese social media platforms. In widely read posts, Hu Wei, a senior scholar affiliated with the Counselors’ Office of the State Council, a government advisory body, questioned China “binding itself with Russia,” and Gao Yusheng, a former Chinese ambassador to Ukraine, predicted that “Putin is bound to fail” in his war effort.
Beijing’s zero-COVID policy and the prolonged lockdowns in Shanghai and other cities this spring have been another source of domestic discontent. Some Chinese observers speculated that the zero-COVID policy was deployed to undermine the power base of the “Shanghai gang”—a group of party officials who gained influence under former President Jiang Zemin—after Shanghai city leadership took a more liberal approach to pandemic management and economic development than Xi preferred. The toll of COVID restrictions has been tremendous in both human misery and economic cost. Shanghai’s GDP contracted by 5.7 percent in the first half of 2022. China’s overall GDP growth in the second quarter of 2022 was 0.4 percent, its lowest rate in decades.
Controversy over Russia and COVID policy may not be enough to challenge Xi’s reign, but the timing is particularly inconvenient for him. By embarking on an unprecedented third term, Xi will be ushering in a new governance and political model for China. Even for a leader as powerful as Xi, breaking away from established tradition requires significant political capital. He needs to rally broad support among party elites. In China’s meritocratic system, any change must be justified. Xi has to prove his superior wisdom and decision-making abilities—and he needs concrete successes to highlight in support of his claims.
FOREIGN POLICY IN MODERATION
Xi has avoided major foreign policy initiatives that could escalate tensions with neighbors or adversaries this year. Most important, he does not want China to become embroiled in a conflict that would distract him from or undercut his position in the domestic political battles that are now his top priority. This does not mean that China will not react if its interests are under threat—although Chinese reactions to perceived provocations, such as the United States fortifying its support of Taiwan, have been relatively mild so far this year. U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s reported visit to Taiwan, if it happens, could trigger a Chinese military response, but it is highly unlikely that China will use the opportunity to attack Taiwan. China is prioritizing stability, at least until the Party Congress is over.
This restraint has been apparent in China’s handling of contentious issues on its periphery. For instance, since 2020, China and India have held 16 rounds of talks regarding their border dispute. Although the talks have yielded little substantive progress so far, China has eagerly pursued improved diplomatic ties with India in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And as the new South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol reorients Seoul’s foreign policy to emphasize security cooperation with the United States—a significant departure from former President Moon Jae-in’s balancing between the United States and China—Beijing has so far refrained from speaking out forcefully against the change or taking retaliatory measures.
Xi’s frustration with China’s strategic position and domestic troubles has been mounting.
Despite its putative alliance with Moscow, China has declined to take a clear stand on Russia’s war in Ukraine, too. Its economic and military support of Russia has been surprisingly thin, given the expectation that pressure from the United States to condemn Moscow’s behavior would trigger more Chinese defiance. In diplomatic statements, China has defended Russia’s actions and accused NATO of aggression, but Beijing’s fear of U.S. sanctions and the further disruption of U.S.-Chinese relations has moderated its policies in this delicate year of political transition. As a result, Russia has complained loudly to Chinese officials that China has not held up its end of the two countries’ partnership.
Even on Taiwan, Beijing’s most sensitive issue, the Chinese government’s policies have been largely reactive to what it perceives as a U.S. and Taiwanese “salami-slicing” strategy—an effort to inch forward bilateral ties. Rather than escalating, Beijing, for the most part, has kept the intensity of its actions below the threshold set in previous years. So far in 2022, the number of Chinese warplane intrusions into the Taiwanese Air Defense Identification Zone on a single day has not exceeded the record of 56 set on October 5, 2021. Beijing has continued its diplomatic, economic, and legal coercion of Taiwan, but it has not advanced further in luring away Taipei’s remaining diplomatic allies since Nicaragua severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan in December 2021. Nor did Beijing react strongly when Taiwanese Vice President William Lai visited Tokyo to attend former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s funeral in July—a notable example of restraint given the seniority of Lai’s position and his past advocacy of Taiwanese independence.
THE LOOSENING OF CONSTRAINTS
Election season in democratic countries is often marked by lofty campaign rhetoric and political posturing, with candidates making promises they may or may not keep once in office. In China, however, political power struggles are fought and won within the Chinese Communist Party. For Xi, as the incumbent hoping to extend his rule, stability is useful while this competition plays out. But the same logic does not hold after he secures a third term. Some observers have assumed that, after the Party Congress, Xi will moderate his foreign policy because he no longer needs to prove his strength to the party elite. This is a grave misunderstanding. Domestic politics may no longer require Xi to look tough, but his desire to maintain that image and his ambitions for China will not have changed.
The world, therefore, should not expect China to be any less assertive or confrontational after the 20th Party Congress than it has been for most of Xi’s tenure. Beijing’s actions will follow Xi’s convictions, and Xi believes in China’s growing power and in securing the country’s rightful place in the international system. His mission will remain “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” If anything, Xi, having grown increasingly frustrated this year with China’s foreign and domestic challenges, will be prepared to project Chinese power even more forcefully and vehemently after his political drama concludes. Free of his current constraints, Xi will ratchet up China’s activities abroad to put the embarrassment of 2022 firmly behind him.
Once his third term is confirmed, Xi’s status as China’s undisputed leader will enable him to take such action with little to no opposition within the Chinese government. Dissenting views, though faint, have persisted inside the system, but Xi’s success in claiming apparently indefinite rule and his appointment of loyalists to key positions will eliminate them. The echo chamber in which China crafts its foreign policy will be sealed even tighter, amplifying the voices of security services and propaganda departments. With no expiration date for Xi’s reign, his critics will have few channels, official or unofficial, through which they can express their opinions or hope for a change in leadership. Bureaucrats will not only follow Xi’s policies but also augment the tough approach they believe is Xi’s preference.
Even if some officials in China wish to tone down Beijing’s assertive foreign strategy, regional developments may not give Xi the option. Intensifying competition with the United States has set in motion a vicious cycle. Washington is consolidating its alliances and partnerships to counter an assertive China, fortifying bilateral security arrangements with Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, as well as the security agreement between Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom known as AUKUS; the Quad, with Australia, Japan, and India; and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, announced in Tokyo in May. In China, meanwhile, an anti–United States propaganda machine has been fully mobilized, creating a hypersensitive environment in which any move by Washington whips the “Wolf Warrior” diplomats—Beijing’s new generation of aggressive and coercive representatives abroad—into a frenzy of fanatic overreaction. This approach has a strong domestic incentive: although China’s authoritarian government has enough control over public opinion to lower the temperature if it chooses, so far Beijing has more often found it useful to fan the flames of nationalism as it tries to coerce foreign governments and advance its policy goals.
XI UNLEASHED
Once the Party Congress is behind him, Xi will seek to reassert Chinese power in areas of strategic priority. Disputes in the western Pacific will be at the top of his list. Tensions are already building around the Korean Peninsula, with North Korea’s next provocation only a matter of time and Washington and Seoul intent on enhancing their deterrence against Pyongyang. In Beijing’s view, these developments undermine China’s military security and its regional influence. In addition to tying South Korea more closely to the United States, a focus on deterrence reduces the incentive for diplomatic engagement with North Korea—an endeavor that boosts Beijing’s leverage. As Washington and Seoul strengthen their military capabilities on the Korean Peninsula, Beijing will engage in tit-for-tat deployment of its own forces within Chinese territory and step up its support for and coordination with Pyongyang. Many Chinese experts on Korea have condemned the Yoon administration’s efforts to align with the United States to counterbalance China as a grave strategic misjudgment. Some even anticipate maritime military skirmishes between China and South Korea in the coming months. A similar dynamic is at play between China and Japan as Tokyo strengthens its capacity to counter Chinese military and paramilitary tactics, such as intrusions by warplanes, naval vessels, and fishing vessels into the airspace and waters surrounding the disputed Diaoyu Islands (known in Japan as the Senkaku Islands).
Even more concerning are Beijing’s plans for Taiwan. Chinese leaders are increasingly enraged over U.S. actions that they see as hollowing out Washington’s “one China” policy and Taiwanese actions—both domestic legislation and international outreach—that they interpret as moves toward independence. China has taken a series of legal steps over the past few years, too, inching forward Beijing’s claims in the Taiwan Strait. Since 2020, the Chinese government has formally denied the existence of the median line, long tacitly acknowledged as a maritime border between mainland China and Taiwan. This past June, Beijing went further by claiming that the strait cannot be considered international waters. Next, China may take concrete steps to put this claim into practice—administering the strait as an exclusive economic zone, for instance—in a bid to eventually oust the U.S. military from the waterway, making it more difficult for the United States to intervene in a potential conflict over Taiwan. And as Taiwan’s local election in late 2022 and presidential election in 2024 approach, China will intensify its military coercion and intimidation in the hope of tipping the scales in favor of the Taiwanese political party that is accommodating to Beijing. The brief hiatus in China’s diplomatic pressure campaign will be over, too, as Beijing moves forward with its standing plan to push additional countries, such as the Vatican, to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
Once the Party Congress is behind him, Xi will seek to reassert Chinese power.
The region as a whole will likely become more tense—and less safe—after the 20th Party Congress. China has dragged its feet in negotiations with Southeast Asian countries over a code of conduct for the South China Sea, which would establish rules for maritime activities and a dispute-resolution process to enforce them. And in the meantime, Beijing has been equipping at least three artificial islands with military planes, antiship and antiaircraft missile systems, and laser and jamming technology. The Chinese military’s pushback against U.S. freedom of navigation operations will likely grow bolder during Xi’s third term. This year China has already made several aerial and naval intercepts of U.S. warplanes and vessels that raised alarms among U.S. military officials. Beijing may see the risk of these incidents escalating into full-blown conflict as acceptably low, which means it will continue to employ these tactics in an effort to drive the U.S. military away from China’s periphery.
It is wishful thinking to expect China’s economic slowdown to curb Xi’s ambition or soften his tactics. Xi’s past behavior shows that he does not consider economic performance to be his primary source of legitimacy—just look at his stubborn adherence to the zero-COVID policy despite its tremendous economic costs. Instead, his actions are predicated on the belief that China has accumulated enough wealth to make displays of strength worth the economic price.
China has weathered more than two years of self-imposed, COVID-induced isolation. In 2022, China’s foreign policy has been relatively mild compared with what it could have been. After the 20th Party Congress, however, China will gradually reopen to the world. The return to normal exchanges, trade, and travel will no doubt be eagerly welcomed. But the darker side of the same coin is the resumption—and potential escalation—of China’s assertive foreign policy. When the Chinese Communist Party meets, Xi will be coronated as the “People’s Leader”—a title held only by Mao Zedong and his successor, Hua Guofeng. A strengthened Xi is not going to be more moderate. He will have less to prove to his domestic audience. But he will have all the power and the opportunity he needs to pursue his “China Dream.”
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China on the Offensive
How the Ukraine War Has Changed Beijing’s Strategy
By Bonny Lin and Jude Blanchette
August 1, 2022
Chinese President Xi Jinping delivering a virtual speech in Boao, China, April 2022
Chinese President Xi Jinping delivering a virtual speech in Boao, China, April 2022
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https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/china-offensive
In the immediate aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Beijing was on the back foot. For weeks after Russian troops crossed Ukraine’s border, China’s messaging was stilted and confused as Chinese diplomats, propagandists, and foreign ministry spokespeople themselves tried to figure out Chinese President Xi Jinping’s line on the conflict. Xi’s “no limits” partnership with Russian President Vladimir Putin was incurring growing reputational costs.
Almost six months after the war’s outbreak and with no end in sight, Beijing has largely regained its footing. Its early concerns that the war would significantly increase overall European defense spending have yet to materialize. Although China would prefer the war to end with a clear Russian victory, a second-best option would be to see the United States and Europe exhaust their supplies of military equipment in support of Ukraine. Meanwhile, rising energy costs and inflation are threatening the resolve of European governments to hold the line on sanctions, signaling to Beijing a potential erosion in transatlantic unity. And even though in advanced democracies public opinion about China has clearly deteriorated, throughout the “global South,” Beijing continues to enjoy broad receptivity for its development assistance and diplomatic messaging.
At the same time, Beijing has concluded that regardless of the war’s outcome, its own external environment has become more dangerous. Chinese analysts see a growing schism between Western democracies and various nondemocratic countries, including China and Russia. China is concerned that the United States may leverage this growing fault line to build economic, technological, or security coalitions to contain it. It believes that Washington and Taipei are intentionally stirring up tension in the region by directly linking the assault on Ukraine to Taiwan’s safety and security. And it is concerned that growing international support for Taiwan will disrupt its plans for “reunification.”
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These perceptions of Western interference have put Beijing once again on the offensive. Moving forward, China’s foreign policy will increasingly be defined by a more bellicose assertion of its interests and the exploration of new pathways to global power that circumvent chokepoints controlled by the West.
WHO TELLS YOUR STORY
Beijing’s reorientation since the invasion is evident in several areas. At the highest level was China’s unveiling earlier this year of a new strategic framework, which it dubbed the “global security initiative.” Although it is still in its early stages, the GSI consolidates several strands of Beijing’s evolving conceptualization about global order. More important, it signals Xi’s attempt to undermine international confidence in the United States as a provider of regional and global stability and to create a platform around which China can justify augmenting its own partnerships. The GSI also counters what Beijing perceives to be false portrayals of China’s aggressiveness and revisionism.
Xi first outlined the GSI during a virtual speech in April. Strictly speaking, there was little new content in Xi’s speech. But in announcing the GSI, Xi was seeking to wrest narrative control on global security away from the United States and its allies in Europe and the Indo-Pacific and discourage countries from joining U.S.-led military blocs or groupings. With this initiative, Xi has put something else on the table to compete with a U.S.-led discussion about what an international order should look like after the war in Ukraine. Core to Beijing’s broader story is that China is a force of stability and predictability in the face of an increasingly volatile and unpredictable United States.
Just as important, Beijing continues to position itself as an innovator and leader in twenty-first-century global governance. Since the GSI’s initial rollout, it has become a standard item to include in meeting readouts from China’s bilateral and multilateral engagements across Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America, evidence that Beijing is pushing for the diplomatic normalization of its new initiative, and thus, inclusion in the vernacular of global governance. Although the GSI may not gain much traction in Tokyo, Canberra, or Brussels, it will find resonance in Jakarta, Islamabad, and Montevideo, where frustration with elements of the U.S.-led order is manifest.
Xi’s April speech also confirmed that the strategic alignment between China and Russia continues, despite Putin’s disastrous war in Ukraine. In particular, Xi included a reference to “indivisible security,” a phrase that dates to the early 1970s and negotiations between the Soviet Union and the West known as the Helsinki Process, but under Putin, has become a short-hand for Moscow’s argument that NATO expansion directly imperils Russia’s own sense of security. As Chinese officials have made crystal clear, Beijing sees a direct connection between NATO’s expanding presence in Europe and the United States’ growing coalition of security partners in the Indo-Pacific. As Le Yucheng, then a top foreign ministry official, said in a May speech, “For quite some time, the United States has kept flexing its muscle on China’s doorstep, creating exclusive groups against China and inflaming the Taiwan question to test China’s red line.” He went on: “If this is not an Asia-Pacific version of NATO’s eastward expansion, then what is?” This linkage of the Russian security environment to China’s was also a central component of the joint statement put out by Xi and Putin on February 4.
MORE AND CLOSER FRIENDS
As part of its post-invasion reorientation, China is also rapidly strengthening partnerships with countries that fall outside of the Western camp—that is, most of the “global South.” China has long sought to deepen its friendships abroad, but it is now recognizing that some countries, such as European democracies, will never stand with it when forced to choose. Referencing Ukraine, Le lamented in March that “some major countries make empty promises to small countries, turn small countries into their pawn and even use them to fight proxy wars.” Beijing does not want to face the same fate if it were to find itself in a conflict against Taiwan or any of its neighbors. As the Chinese scholar Yuan Zheng has explained, Beijing believes “that a potential proxy war is what some hawkish individuals and groups back in the U.S. are expecting to take place in China’s neighborhood.” Even if Chinese leaders are still confident about their country’s political system and its growing economic and military power, they recognize that it is still dependent on external goods and resources to fuel its development and growing military capabilities. Accordingly, Beijing is moving fast to both deepen and broaden partnerships to increase its immunity to crippling sanctions and to ensure that it is not alone in hard times. This includes strengthening bilateral relations with Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. In August, Venezuela is expected to host a sniper competition as part of Russia-led military exercise in the Western Hemisphere that will likely involve China, Russia, Iran, and ten other countries in a show of force against the United States.
China is also keen to cement exclusive blocs of countries that will support it—or at least not support the United States. Chief among these efforts is China’s attempt to strengthen and expand the BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—as an alternative developing world bloc to compete with the Quad, the G-7, and the G-20. In May, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held a meeting of BRICS foreign ministers that included an additional nine guests, including from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The next month, as the host of a BRICS summit, Xi advocated expanding the group and proposed new cooperative efforts on the digital economy, trade, and investment, and the supply chain. Xi also invited an unprecedented 13 world leaders to participate in a high-level dialogue on global development with BRICS countries, including Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. Not long after, Argentina and Iran officially applied to join the BRICS group, and Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey expressed interest in doing so, as well. In July, Moscow went so far as to suggest that the group’s members “create a new world reserve currency to better serve their economic interests.”
Perceptions of Western interference have again put Beijing on the offensive.
In addition to BRICS expansion, Beijing is seeking to transform the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which includes Russia, into a powerful bloc that can leverage deep political, economic, and military ties. China has long pushed for more SCO economic cooperation and proposed the establishment of a free trade agreement and creation of a SCO bank. Although these ideas fell flat last year, this year, in May, the SCO discussed the need for increased interactions among member states, particularly on international security and economic cooperation. As SCO formal membership expands to include Iran later this year, and potentially Belarus in the future, the organization is primed to become more assertive on the world stage. Indeed, this June, Tehran proposed that the SCO adopt a single currency and expressed hopes that the group can become a “concert of non-Western great powers.”
Within both blocs and beyond, it will be increasingly important to observe how much China, Russia, and Iran are able to deepen relations with one another and drive broader alignment among countries that are dissatisfied with U.S. leadership. Similarly, the extent to which China can leverage its close relationship with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to build support among Muslim countries, including with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Gulf Cooperation Council, is another variable affecting support for China among developing countries.
BACKING UP WORDS WITH FORCE
A final component of China’s foreign policy rethink concerns military force. Beijing believes that the West is incapable of understanding or sympathizing with what it views as legitimate Russian security concerns. There is no reason for China to assume that the United States and its allies will treat China’s concerns any differently. Because diplomacy is not effective, China may need to use force to demonstrate its resolve.
This is particularly true when it comes to Taiwan, and Beijing is now more anxious than ever about U.S. intentions toward the island and what it perceives to be increasing provocations. This has led to discussion among some Chinese foreign policy analysts about whether another Taiwan Strait crisis is imminent and, if so, how China should prepare. Yang Jiechi, a diplomat who serves on China’s Politburo, has stated that China will take “firm actions”—including using the military—to safeguard its interests. At the same time, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army has engaged in more exercises near Taiwan in an effort to deter potential third-party intervention. These dynamics likely explain why Beijing is issuing unusually sharp warnings over the visit to Taiwan that Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, is planning, saying that such a trip would “have a severe negative impact on the political foundations of China-U.S. relations.”
It would be a mistake to brush aside China’s warnings—and its threats of military action—simply because prior warnings have failed to materialize. Although the prospect of an invasion of Taiwan remains remote, Beijing has numerous paths to escalate short of outright conflict, including sending jets to fly over Taiwanese territory. And if Beijing did take more drastic action out of frustration with recent U.S. behavior, this could easily provoke a full-blown crisis.
IT’S UP TO XI
Will China’s recent efforts to shift the balance of momentum and power in its direction work? It remains to be seen if the GSI will fundamentally alter the international order, or even become a key pillar of China’s approach to global governance. China has tried and failed before to drive the discussion on global security, as was the case with its New Security Concept, a security framework that sought greater economic and diplomatic interactions, which was first articulated in 1996. Back then, of course, China had far less economic and diplomatic leverage. And regardless of its ultimate success, the GSI is an important window into how Beijing will seek to steer the conversation on regional and global security after the upcoming 20th Party Congress, which is expected to be held in the fall.
Beijing’s efforts to revitalize and expand existing organizations such as the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization also face obstacles. India, for instance, is a member of both blocs and may constrain any openly anti-American efforts. But even marginal improvements in the capabilities and cohesion of these groupings would help Beijing blunt any coercive or punitive moves that the United States and its allies may make against China in the years ahead.
But perhaps the biggest factor shaping China’s strategic environment moving forward is Beijing itself. On paper, one can begin to glimpse the initial outlines of China’s readjusted game plan. Deeper ties with the “global South.” A repurposing of existing Beijing-led institutions like the SCO. New concepts of security that align with its own vision for international order. Implemented well, this strategy would no doubt complicate U.S. foreign policy. But these efforts take considerable time, and they could unravel if Beijing’s increasingly aggressive and coercive behavior against its neighbors generates international pushback or reticence to work with China. Xi’s penchant for “own goals” and his dramatic overreach have proved to be the single biggest inhibitor for China’s grand strategy. His hunger for power could well doom Chinese foreign policy.
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https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/1758798/following-lithuania-s-example-latvia-and-estonia-quit-china-s-16plus1-platform?fbclid=IwAR1bCdwZgQ2i5rTJ47llpLV0F3PfjT0kriq0OJz_nR5As6v5OqZSvKPxB0k
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"Life is tough. It is tougher when you are stupid."
John Wayne
In our stupidity we have Manchurian Joe Biden as our Commander in Chief, Kommiela Harris one heart-beat from stepping in, and Nancy Pelosi two heart beats from stepping in:
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Gordon Chang: Chinese Communist Party Is Preparing for War
By Andrew Thornebrooke August 25, 2022 Updated: August 26, 2022
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is preparing for a war, according to China analyst and author Gordon Chang.
Several recent developments in China’s policies—particularly an amendment to China’s National Defense Law—could signal that the regime is prepping for a full mobilization of its military, according to Chang.
“China’s newly amended National Defense Law takes certain powers over military matters from the civilian State Council and gives them to the Communist Party’s Central Military Commission, which controls the People’s Liberation Army,” Chang said in an email to The Epoch Times.
“That move centralizes military decision-making. Moreover, the amendment, which relates to war mobilization, signals that the regime is preparing the Chinese people for conflict.”
In addition to centralizing the authority for military mobilization, Chang noted that the CCP was making efforts to effectively sanction-proof its political elite by forbidding certain officials from owning foreign real estate or shares in offshore companies.
“If Chinese officials and their family members do not own foreign assets, foreign countries cannot strip them of their holdings,” Chang said.
“Shedding these assets, therefore, makes those individuals immune to one of today’s most commonly imposed sanctions.”
Through the centralization of authority over military mobilization and the shoring up of economic defenses against potential international sanctions, Chang believes that the CCP is preparing for the possibility of armed hostilities. The question remains, however, as to just where such a war could break out.
Waging People’s War
Following a month of unprecedented military exercises and economic retaliations, Taiwan is in the limelight.
There are numerous other flashpoints along China’s periphery—any one of which could quickly escalate to outright conflicts—such as the mountainous Ladakh border region that China shares with India, disputes throughout the South China Sea with the Philippines and Vietnam, and disputes in the East China Sea with Japan.
Indeed, Chang believes that China’s neighbors could be a potential target should the CCP believe the opportunity is on its side.
“In the past few weeks, China’s regime has put Taiwan in the spotlight, but the Chinese party-state is threatening most of its neighbors to its south and east,” Chang said. “All neighbors there, large and small, are under threat.”
“We do not know where Beijing will strike next. China’s Communist Party does not act on grievances; it acts when and where it smells opportunity.”
Beyond hostilities in pursuit of regional hegemony, Chang said there is another threat permeating the world—the CCP’s ambition to leverage an international people’s war.
People’s War is a doctrine established by communist leader Mao Zedong and later evolved by Deng Xiaoping to promote long-term revolutionary communist struggle. According to Chang, the current CCP leadership is blending the doctrine of People’s War with a global Chinese identity to weaponize the Chinese diaspora community and promote the CCP’s interests.
“China’s regime makes the ‘blood’ argument, that all Chinese are of the same blood and that all are therefore bound to support the Communist Party,” Chang said.
“The Party has recently been making the case that it must unite the world—tianxia or ‘All Under Heaven’—and that means uniting all Chinese, no matter where they live and no matter their citizenship.”
Biden Unprepared for CCP Aggression
Though the CCP has been working on weaponizing the Chinese diaspora against the West for decades, Chang does not believe the United States is prepared for conflict with China. Indeed, he said that the Biden administration failed to comprehend the CCP as an adversary.
“President Biden gives the impression that he is oblivious to China’s mobilization of Chinese society,” Chang said. “He will not even call China an ‘adversary,’ and he certainly does not use the correct term, which is ‘enemy.'”
To that end, Chang said that he feared the administration is content to watch and wait as the CCP prepares for armed hostilities that could overwhelm the United States and its ability to defend itself.
“Biden must tell the American people what China is doing, tell the American people that they too must prepare for war, and tell the armed forces to get ready for battle,” Chang said.
“Too often in the past, American presidents let enemies attack us first. The Chinese will not, with their first attack, give us the opportunity to rally ourselves.”
Whereas previous animosities in the Sino-American relationship were effectively overcome through dialogue, Chang said that CCP leader Xi Jinping now maintains a military that is superior in every way to that of China 20 years ago, and that the regime is now, after years of preparation, prepared to go to war.
“Xi is making all-of-society preparations to engage in sustained conflict,” Chang said. “China is now more ready for battle than it has been in centuries.”
“That’s what makes this moment truly different.”
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/aug/9/chinas-wuhan-institute-studied-deadly-bioterrorism/
presumably making them so those with Han genes have immunity
perfect bioterror weapon
But Fink just sees $$$$ .... :-(
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https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2022/09/09/china-ends-cooperation-u-n-human-rights-commission-after-xinjiang-report/
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https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63293582
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/oct/25/new-british-prime-minister-rishi-sunak-vows-counte/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=evening&utm_term=evening&utm_content=evening&bt_ee=08dircL%2B61aVZC8z9S%2F4A0XpiarEo1SrI4HH%2FfUSyB9TBOcZNti7BwLJvtvXxsRm&bt_ts=1666729530414
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October 28, 2022
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German Foreign Policy for Sale
Berlin is trying to secure the best deals for itself in an increasingly bifurcated world.
By: Ryan Bridges
The world is dividing into two rival camps, one led by the U.S. and another by China, but it seems as if no one told the Germans. This week, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz signed off on Chinese shipping giant COSCO’s purchase of a 24.9 percent stake in a Hamburg port terminal, overruling his coalition partners and six ministries in the process. Outraged, the ministries controlled by Scholz’s coalition partners apparently leaked details of a formal letter outlining their objections, saying the investment “disproportionately expands China's strategic influence on German and European transport infrastructure as well as Germany's dependence on China.”
But that’s not all. On Nov. 3-4, Scholz will lead a German business delegation to China. The president of the Federation of German Industries and the CEOs of Siemens and Volkswagen will accompany him – Mercedes, Deutsche Bank and SAP declined to join. The visit raises several questions. Why was Berlin in a hurry to approve the Hamburg port deal before the trip? Why go now, when Western unity against Russia and its backers (including China) is so critical, and when Scholz will see Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G-20 summit in Bali later in November anyway? Why go alone, and not as part of a common front, at least with French President Emmanuel Macron? (Recall that when he invited Xi to visit Paris in 2019, Macron invited then-Chancellor Angela Merkel and the commission president to participate, which they did.) And why bring business executives, when Germany is already highly reliant on China, and German officials have repeatedly raised the urgency of economic diversification?
Exports are the lifeblood of the German economy, and its large manufacturing and chemicals firms have serious influence over German policymaking. They also aren’t shy about using it. For example, BASF said this week that it will “permanently” downsize its European operations due to weak growth in the European chemical market, spikes in regional natural gas and power prices, and – in an unsubtle dig – EU-induced regulatory uncertainty. German industry has grumbled all year that the loss of cheap Russian gas poses an existential threat to its operations and, to hear industry bosses tell it, the German nation. Despite this, the Hamburg port deal and the business trip to Beijing are ultimately political decisions – ones Scholz did not have to make. There is no rush: COSCO told investors it was reconsidering the deal after Berlin reduced its share in the port terminal from 35 percent, which would have given it a blocking minority, to quiet critics inside the Cabinet. And publicly, at least, there is no urgent business between Berlin and Beijing that couldn’t wait until Scholz and Xi are both in Bali 12 days later. The urgency and parochialism are self-imposed.
Germany's Reliance on Exports | 1970-2021
(click to enlarge)
It is also inconceivable that Scholz is unaware of the frictions these developments will cause with Germany’s allies in the U.S., Europe and Asia. This leaves two possibilities: First, that Berlin is charting a nonaligned course for itself in the new cold war between the U.S. and China. Or second, that it is attempting to secure the best relationship it can with China now, while there’s still time, in order to lock in economic opportunities and strengthen its future position with respect to its partners.
Berlin does have some room to maneuver. An interesting side effect of Russia’s quagmire in Ukraine is that over time it diminishes a key element of U.S. leverage over Germany. German and European security is guaranteed by NATO, which is to say by the U.S. military. But the alliance has been in search of a justification for itself for much of the 21st century. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine shocked NATO out of its obsolescence, but Russia looks less threatening every day. Russian forces are desperately trying to hold what meager Ukrainian territory they have seized over eight months of fighting until poorly trained reinforcements can arrive. Far from credibly threatening NATO with World War III, Moscow’s strategy appears to be to survive until Western societies lose interest in Ukraine or become sufficiently alarmed at Russian nuclear threats to back down. In five or 10 years, it’s doubtful that Russia will pose a greater threat to Germany than it does today or than it was believed to pose at the start of the year. Domestic pressure in the U.S. to reduce its commitments in Europe will only grow, and a sudden change is conceivable under a Republican administration. But this threat will not have the same immediate resonance in Berlin as it did when then-President Donald Trump made it in 2020. It’s less and less clear what the tens of thousands of U.S. troops stationed in Germany are protecting the Germans against.
At the same time, as Washington tries to outmaneuver Beijing, it is becoming more protectionist. The Germans are furious about “Buy American” provisions in President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which favor domestically produced electric vehicles. It may make sense to the White House to defend its industrial base to compete with China, but German carmakers don’t understand why they should be excluded too. This is all the more alarming for Germany because, far from abandoning its export-led growth model, Berlin wants to double down, as evidenced by its considerations to reopen free trade talks with Washington.
Germany’s problem is that its economic model is so dependent on trade that its foreign policy is effectively for sale, but it can only seriously entertain one bid: America’s. NATO may not be necessary for Germany’s immediate security, but it still provides the order upon which Germany has built its entire grand strategy. The core of Germany’s economic strength is its dominance of the European market, which comes at the cost of giving 26 other governments a veto on aspects of its policymaking. Russia may not scare Germany now or in the next few years, but the countries between them will not feel the same. Forced to choose between, say, a controversial EU-China investment agreement or American security guarantees against Moscow, Eastern Europeans will choose the Americans. Scholz’s government has not given the east any reason to believe Berlin is able or willing to replace U.S. guarantees. Berlin is trying to weaken its partners’ veto with a proposed fast-track trade approval procedure, which would sideline national parliaments and break up trade deals so the parts that matter most to Germany could be voted on separately (and by national leaders only). However, this would not eliminate U.S. leverage. Perhaps more important, in the meantime U.S. energy leverage over Europe is set to soar, as the Continent sucks up U.S. liquefied natural gas in place of Russian gas.
The German economy will struggle to cope with a world divided into rival blocs. It might still be in denial about U.S.-Chinese decoupling. More likely, it is trying to make the most of the time and leverage it has left to extract the best deal it can for itself. With any luck, China will make concessions to it in a desperate bid to break the U.S.-EU front. Scholz’s flirtations with Xi may push the U.S. to take its allies’ concerns into consideration when making future moves to hurt China or help itself. But ultimately, Germany has nowhere else to go and lacks the will to try to create a third way
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We will be working double stick for Snaggletooth Variations today plus, as always, taking requests,
Remember guys-- this online class is about how to teach DBMA so please bring your questions.
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Stratfor
What to Take From German Chancellor Scholz's Visit to China
9 MIN READNov 9, 2022 | 20:12 GMT
Visiting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and members of his delegation attend a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Nov. 4, 2022.
Visiting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and members of his delegation (right side of table) attend a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Nov. 4, 2022.
(KAY NIETFELD/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's recent trip to China indicates that Berlin will continue to maintain trade ties with Beijing while also working to gradually reduce critical dependencies, despite mounting external and domestic pressure for a more aggressive decoupling. Scholz visited China on Nov. 3-4 accompanied by a large business delegation, the first Western leader to do so since Chinese President Xi Jinping secured an unprecedented third term in October. The two leaders condemned the threat of nuclear weapons in Ukraine and discussed the mutual need to ensure the stability of food and energy supply chains. Finally, as Scholz was flying back to Berlin on Nov. 4, the German Chancellery posted a tweet that noted the ''reliability and trust'' between Germany and China as the basis for a ''political partnership'' between the two countries. As he was flying back to Berlin on Nov. 4, Scholz tweeted that ''reliability and trust [formed] the basis of diplomatic relations and political partnerships'' and that it was ''a good thing that [he and Xi] met in person and held talks.''
Top executives from some of Germany's largest firms — including BASF, Volkswagen, BMW, Deutsche Bank and BioNTech — joined Scholz on his trip.
In Beijing, Scholz also raised concerns about the Xi administration's use of trade for political coercion and push for near-total control over the Chinese economy, as well as problems of market access and IP theft for European companies operating in China.
In a Nov. 3 op-ed penned to the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Scholz defended his decision to travel to China amid growing criticism from Berlin, Washington, Brussels, Paris and several other European capitals. He rejected the idea that Germany should ''decouple'' from China, arguing that the country remained ''an important economic and trading partner for Germany and Europe'' and that he was traveling to Beijing ''precisely because 'business as usual [was] no longer an option in [today's] circumstances.'' In response to the backlash over this trip, Scholz also noted that he had coordinated ''closely'' with EU and U.S. partners ahead of the visit, adding that a ''German policy on China can only be successful when it is embedded in European policy on China.''
A strategic rethinking of relations with China is underway in both Germany and the European Union, with Berlin being urged to reduce strategic economic dependencies on China. For decades, Europe had viewed China primarily as a commercial opportunity as opposed to a potential competitor or systemic rival. But in recent years, EU countries have started to reconsider their strategic approach to Beijing amid growing security concerns related to expanding ties with an increasingly assertive and autocratic regime. Germany, meanwhile, is also reviewing its China strategy. Berlin's new position, which is set to be made public sometime next year, is expected to focus on weakening Germany's economic reliance on China and diversifying supply chains, all the while preserving business ties with Beijing. China remains Germany's largest trading partner and a key investment destination for large German companies, which have even recently hiked investment into the country against the trend of most other European firms that have largely frozen or reduced their commitments in the past few years. However, the value of Germany's foreign investment in China is also highly concentrated in a relatively small number of large multinational companies, particularly in the automotive industry. While the impact wouldn't be as critical as Germany's decision to reduce its reliance on Russian natural gas following Russia's invasion of Ukraine earlier this year, this means that Germany's export-driven economy would be hit hard if a major geopolitical crisis (such as a Chinese invasion of Taiwan) forced Berlin to quickly reduce trade ties with Beijing. Moreover, Germany still has critical supply vulnerabilities rooted in its overreliance on China, which mostly consist of high imports of Chinese rare earth minerals, essential components for solar and wind technologies, as well as certain chemical goods and electrical equipment.
China was Germany's largest trading partner for the sixth consecutive year in 2021, accounting for 9.5% of its trade in goods. According to a study conducted by the German Economic Institute, German businesses' direct investment in China totaled a record 10 billion euros in the first half of 2022.
A 2021 study from Germany's Kiel Institute for the World Economy estimates that a decoupling in trade with China would cost Germany about 1.4% of GDP (or roughly 48.4 billion euros) in real income, and 1% of GDP for the European Union as a whole. In a study published earlier this year, the Cologne Institute for Economic Research (IW) estimated that exports to China accounted for 2.7% of Germany's total economic added value and 2.4% of employment.
Germany's automotive industry has significantly expanded its foreign investment in China in recent years. China represented 29% of the sector's total foreign investment in 2019, which typically accounts for more than 70% of German investment and over a third of European investment in the country.
EU foreign ministers discussed revising the bloc's strategy toward China at an Oct. 20-21 summit in Luxembourg. Ahead of the meeting, EU ministers received a letter on Oct. 17 from the European External Action Service (the bloc's agency for foreign relations) advising them to take a tougher stance on China and to see the country as an all-out-competitor with only limited areas of potential cooperation.
Germany will continue to seek commercial ties with China while simultaneously working to further diversify its exports and reduce supply chain dependencies. Scholz's words before and after his two-day trip to Beijing show how Berlin has indeed acknowledged the status quo has changed under President Xi's iron-fisted rule and that Germany needs to reduce its economic dependencies. At the same time, the trip confirmed that Germany's approach to Beijing is still driven by a perception of China as primarily a trading partner and key market for some of the country's most prosperous and strategic industries. The combination of these realities will compel Germany to continue to seek commercial ties with China as long as they remain viable and profitable by exporting cars, machinery and other goods to a vast market that still harbors the potential for further growth. At the same time, Berlin will also seek to reduce dependencies in industrial supply chains.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has recently reiterated her demand for a more assertive ''new China strategy,'' arguing that ''China is our partner on global issues'' but also a ''competitor and increasingly a systemic rival,'' adding that ''we will base our China policy on this strategic understanding and also align our cooperation with other regions in the world.''
In an interview with the newspaper German Welt am Sonntag published on Nov. 4, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said Germany ''must recognize that China is not only a place to do business, but also a systemic rival.''
Scholz is also facing backlash after signing off on a deal allowing Chinese state-owned shipping giant Cosco to buy a 24.9% stake in one of Hamburg's port three terminals in October. EU and U.S. leaders have both criticized the deal, along with several members of Scholz's own cabinet. Still, the decision to allow a smaller stake than the originally planned 35% is a compromise between Scholz and his coalition partners — further illustrating the Chancellor's balancing act in his approach to China, which seeks to maintain business ties while limiting strategic dependencies.
There are signs Berlin is becoming increasingly wary of granting China access to strategic assets. On Nov. 9, for example, the German government blocked the sale of Elmos Semiconductor's wafer facility to a Swedish subsidiary of China's Sai MicroElectronics due to security concerns. The government is also reportedly planning to block a pros
pective Chinese takeover of the German semiconductor firm ERS Electronic in Bavaria for similar reasons.
After analyzing direct and indirect value-added linkages along Germany's supply chain, the Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich recently concluded that China played an important but ''by no means dominant role'' for Germany as a supplier or destination market. The study, which was published in June, found that China accounted for 7% of all foreign value added to the production of final goods in Germany, whereas the European Union represented 44% and the United States 10%. But analysis conducted at the product level also showed that the German economy remained dependent on China for several critical industrial goods and raw materials.
While expanding trade ties with China will not represent a systemic threat to the German economy, it will leave German companies with a large presence in the Chinese market exposed to growing operational, reputational and financial risks. Berlin will likely accelerate and coordinate action with fellow EU countries and other key allies — including Japan, Australia, and the United States — to build alternative supply chains in critical sectors by expanding economic cooperation with other countries, including in China's neighborhood. Ultimately, however, the onus will be on German companies. While they'll be allowed to keep trading with China, German firms will face increasing pressure to reduce critical dependencies, increase export diversification to other markets, and put in place contingency plans to ensure continuity of operations should a geopolitical crisis with China (i.e. an invasion of Taiwan) require a sudden decoupling. Failing to do so may come at the cost of ready and cheap access to capital, either in the form of government guarantees (which Berlin offers to German companies in emerging markets to protect their investments from political risk), or lower creditworthiness and company valuations on the financial markets due to perceived high levels of geopolitical risk.
In May, Germany's economy ministry refused to extend Volkswagen's investment guarantees for China, citing human rights violations in Xinjiang. The ministry is now working on plans to cap the number of such guarantees for China, according to the Financial Times.
According to a recent survey conducted by the Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, nearly half the German manufacturers that receive significant inputs from China plan to reduce their Chinese imports, mostly citing ''to decrease dependencies and increase diversification, increased freight costs and disruptions in transportation, as well as political uncertainty'' as the main reasons.
Scholz allegedly rejected a proposal by French President Emmanuel Macron to hold a joint meeting with Xi, highlighting a lack of concrete alignment on China between the European Union's two largest economies. However, both Scholz and Macron have critiqued the United States' increasingly confrontational stance on China, advocating instead for a more nuanced approach that still sees Beijing as a trade partner, with a focus on diversifying (and not decoupling) from China.
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How to Stop Chinese Coercion
The Case for Collective Resilience
By Victor Cha
January/February 2023
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/world/how-stop-china-coercion-collective-resilience-victor-cha
It took just seven words for the National Basketball Association to get canceled by Beijing. As pro-democracy protesters swarmed the streets of Hong Kong in October 2019, Daryl Morey, then the general manager of the Houston Rockets, one of the NBA’s 30 teams, posted a simple message to his Twitter account: “Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong.” Chinese broadcasters and streamers quickly announced that they would no longer show his team’s games. The league, which has more viewers in China than in the United States, immediately tried to distance itself from Morey’s tweet, writing that the general manager didn’t speak for the NBA and issuing a statement that implicitly rebuked him. That response fostered a backlash among fans outside China and did nothing to please Beijing. A bipartisan collection of U.S. senators blasted the league for not standing by Morey’s freedom of expression while all 11 of the NBA’s Chinese sponsors and partners suspended their cooperation. With a couple of exceptions, China’s broadcasters stopped airing NBA games until March 2022. The league’s commissioner, Adam Silver, estimated that the rupture cost his organization hundreds of millions of dollars.
At first glance, the row between China and the NBA may seem like small potatoes: a tiny example of how the U.S.-Chinese relationship is now more defined by contestation than by close economic partnership. But Beijing’s behavior toward the NBA is emblematic of a much bigger and extremely worrying pattern, and it is one that the Biden administration’s China strategy does not wholly address. Over the last dozen years, Beijing has slapped discriminatory sanctions on trading partners that interact with Taiwan or support democracy in Hong Kong. It has imposed embargoes on and fueled boycotts against countries and companies that speak out against genocide in Xinjiang or repression in Tibet. Indeed, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has gone after almost any entity that has crossed China in any way. And this strategy has worked. Because the Chinese economy is so integral to global markets, China’s coercive behavior has caused tens of billions of dollars in damage. The mere threat of Chinese cutoffs is now prompting states and businesses to stay quiet about Beijing’s abuses.
This silence is both deafening and dangerous. The CCP is carrying out a genocide of China’s Uyghur minority in Xinjiang, engaging in a wide variety of other human rights abuses, and menacing nearby countries—but states are too afraid to respond. Left unchecked, this paralysis could hollow out the postwar liberal order. Should they fear major penalties, few governments, for instance, will come to Taiwan’s defense if it is attacked by China. They will not help New Delhi if China attempts to take more Indian land in the Himalayas. They will hesitate to join the White House’s supply chain initiatives.
Concerned countries could appeal to the World Trade Organization, the usual arbiter of international economic disputes, to try to free them from the specter of Chinese sanctions. But the WTO is unlikely to be of any help. It can investigate an 80.5 percent Chinese tariff on Australian barley as discriminatory, but if China simply stops importing bananas from the Philippines or stops sending tour groups to Korea by citing the “will of the Chinese people,” there is little the organization can do in response.
The Biden administration is aware that Chinese economic predation is a major problem. It has responded by advocating resilient supply chains among like-minded partners in everything from personal protective equipment to memory chips, allowing these states to stop relying so much on Chinese-made goods. The administration has also imposed export controls on the transfer of advanced computing chips and chip-making equipment to China, and it may soon extend these controls to quantum information science, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and advanced algorithms.
But these efforts are at best a partial solution. Countries may be able to wean themselves from some Chinese goods in the supply chain, but Biden cannot reasonably expect most of them to decouple from one of the largest economies in the world. Export controls by the United States on the transfer of cutting-edge technologies to China won’t work unless other countries possessing such technology—including Denmark, Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea, and the United Kingdom—join in. And these states may choose not to participate in Washington’s supply-chain and technological coalitions because they fear Chinese economic retaliation.
To successfully compete with China, the United States needs to do more than insulate states from Chinese coercion. It needs to stop the coercion from happening in the first place. To do so, the United States will need to band together with its partners and draw up a new strategy, one of collective resilience. China assumes that it can boss other countries around because of its size and central role in the global economy. But China still imports enormous numbers of goods: for hundreds of products, the country’s economy is more than 70 percent dependent on imports from states that Beijing has coerced. Together, these goods are worth more than $31.2 billion to the Chinese economy. For nearly $9.1 billion worth of items, China is more than 90 percent dependent on suppliers in states it has targeted. Washington should organize these countries into a club that threatens to cut off China’s access to vital goods whenever Beijing acts against any single member. Through such an entity, states will finally be able to deter China’s predatory behavior.
Dealing with China’s weaponization of trade will be necessary if the Biden administration wants to successfully compete with Beijing. And although a U.S.-led collective-resilience bloc may strike proponents of globalization as mercantilist, they should understand that it is in fact essential to their project. China will continue to abuse its economic position and distort markets until it is forced to stop. Collective deterrence, then, may be the best way to keep the global economy free and open.
WILD ABANDON
China’s predatory actions are carefully designed to hit countries where it hurts most. Consider what Beijing did to Norway in 2010. After a Norwegian committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to a Chinese dissident, Beijing heavily restricted imports of Norwegian salmon. Over the next year, the product went from cornering almost 94 percent of China’s salmon market to just 37 percent, a collapse that deprived the Norwegian economy of $60 million in one year. After South Korea agreed to host a U.S. missile system in 2016, Beijing forced stores in China owned by the enormous Seoul-based Lotte Group to shut down, causing over $750 million in economic damage. China similarly banned and then heavily restricted the sale of group tours to South Korea, costing the country an estimated $15.6 billion.
Beijing also frequently targets individual businesses if they or their employees deviate from China’s official positions. In 2012, Chinese protesters—encouraged, according to a Los Angeles Times report, by Beijing—shut down Toyota’s manufacturing plants in China in response to tensions over the Senkaku Islands, which are administered by Tokyo but which Beijing claims (and refers to as the Diaoyu Islands). In 2018, Beijing took the website of Marriott Hotels offline for a week after the company sent an email to its rewards members in which it listed Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and Tibet as separate countries. The company apologized and issued a public statement against separatist movements in China. The same year, Beijing made more than 40 airlines—including American, Delta, and United—remove references to Taiwan as a separate country on their websites simply by sending them a menacing letter. And in 2021, the Chinese state media egged on a boycott of the Swedish fashion retailer H&M after it expressed concern about forced labor in Xinjiang. H&M sales in China quickly dropped by 23 percent.
To be fair, China is not the only country that engages in economic coercion. It is in some ways endemic to the international system. Writing in these pages in January 2020, the political scientists Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman observed that globalization had enabled many countries to leverage financial power in pursuit of political ends, a phenomenon they have called “weaponized interdependence” in their earlier work. This isn’t always a negative. Indeed, in some situations, states have weaponized interdependence to target clearly bad international behavior. The widespread Western sanctioning of Russia for the war in Ukraine, for example, and the United States’ financial sanctions against North Korea and Iran for nuclear proliferation were designed to curtail illegal and dangerous acts.
Biden cannot expect most states to decouple from China.
But what China is doing is different, both in scale and kind. The United States may issue frequent sanctions, but these follow a clear set of processes: Washington does not weaponize economic interdependence through such a wide variety of means. One recent study identified 123 cases of coercion since 2010, carried out through popular boycotts against companies, restrictions on trade, limits on tourism to foreign countries, and other mechanisms. And aside from when the Trump administration levied a bizarre spate of tariffs against American allies, no other government has imposed sanctions or embargoes so casually, penalizing states for mild annoyances rather than broadly unacceptable international actions, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There is, for example, a direct correlation between countries whose leaders have met with the Dalai Lama and a decline in those states’ exports to China.
Beijing is unapologetic about the use of these sanctions and does not acknowledge that they violate global trading norms. It is not worried about domestic discontent arising from its behavior because the illiberal nature of China’s political system insulates the government from pushback. And because its trading partners are all more dependent on China than the other way around, Beijing usually has the advantage. As the Chinese ambassador to New Zealand warned in 2022, “An economic relationship in which China buys nearly a third of the country’s exports shouldn’t be taken for granted.”
HALF MEASURES
Beijing’s long-term objective is to force governments and companies to anticipate, respect, and defer to Chinese interests in all future actions. It seems to be working. Major democracies such as South Korea remained silent when China passed a national security law in Hong Kong suppressing democracy in 2020. In 2021, Brazil did not exclude the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei from its 5G auction for fear of losing billions of dollars in business. In 2019, after the Gap clothing company released a T-shirt design with a map of China that did not include Taiwan and Tibet, it issued a public apology and removed the shirt from sale, even before Beijing said anything. After the salmon restrictions in 2010, Norwegian leaders refused to meet with the Dalai Lama when he visited in 2014. And according to reports and investigations by a variety of organizations, including The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and the human rights nonprofit PEN America, Hollywood companies won’t produce films that cast China in a negative light for fear of losing ticket sales.
Beijing’s apparent success doesn’t mean that countries have sat idly by while China has weaponized economic interdependence. The world’s heavy reliance on Chinese manufacturing—starkly illustrated by shortages of masks and other personal protective equipment in the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic—has prompted almost every country to become more attuned to its own economic security. Japan, for instance, set up a new cabinet position for economic security in October 2021 and passed legislation to guard critical supply chains and technologies. During the spring of 2022, in the aftermath of both Beijing’s coercion and the pandemic, South Korea created an early warning system designed to detect threats to nearly 4,000 key industry materials. The South Korean government also established a new economic security position in the presidential office.
States have also gotten better at redirecting trade, meaning that when China imposes tariffs or an import embargo on a target state’s goods, the target state finds alternative markets. This strategy has seen some success. Throughout 2020, China approved tariffs on Australian barley, coal, and wine in response to Canberra’s calls for an independent investigation into COVID-19’s origins, prompting Australia to redirect these goods to the rest of the world. When China restricted exports of rare-earth minerals to Japan over a territorial dispute in 2010, Japan diversified its sources of critical minerals and invested more in domestic seabed exploration. As a result, it has reduced its dependence on China for critical minerals from 90 percent to 58 percent in a decade.
Countries are now following Biden’s advice to “reshore” and “friend shore” supply chains, moving key elements of production from China (or places where China exercises inordinate influence) to manufacturers back home or to trusted partner economies. Through the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, known as the Quad, Australia, India, Japan, and the United States are building resilient supply chains for COVID-19 vaccines, semiconductors, and emerging and critical technologies, including those related to clean energy. The countries participating in the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific Economic Framework are working on establishing an early warning system, mapping out critical supply chains, and diversifying their sources for important goods. In June, the United States announced the Minerals Security Partnership, an alliance with Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Japan, Norway, South Korea, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the European Union to safeguard the supply of copper, lithium, cobalt, nickel, and rare-earth minerals. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States are contemplating the creation of an alliance called Chip 4 that would consolidate the supply chain for semiconductors.
These measures are all useful and necessary. But they do not constitute a comprehensive solution. Reshoring and friend shoring insulate states against China’s disruptions to the production chain while doing nothing to stop its economic coercion: securing the supply of one product does not prevent Beijing from cutting countries off from another product. Indeed, countries’ enthusiasm for participating in such measures is limited by fears that China will retaliate. South Korea, for example, has hesitated to join the Chip 4 alliance in part because it is concerned that Beijing would once again ban many of its consumer goods and block the flow of Chinese tourists. Supply chain resilience, trade diversion, and reshoring can work only if complemented by a strategy crafted to end China’s predatory economic behavior.
FLIPPING THE SCRIPT
Part of China’s hubris in practicing economic coercion against its trade partners comes from confidence that the targets will not dare counter sanctions with concrete action. Beijing is right to be confident: it is hard for any single country to go up against an economic behemoth. China, for instance, accounts for 31.4 percent of global trade in Australia, 22.9 percent in Japan, 23.9 percent in South Korea, and 14.8 percent in the United States—whereas those countries respectively account for 3.6 percent, 6.1 percent, 6.0 percent, and 12.5 percent of China’s trade.
But these states can fight back if they work together or, in other words, practice collective resilience. That strategy would flip the script. Australia, Japan, South Korea, and the United States may individually be at a disadvantage, but combined they account for nearly 30 percent of China’s imports, exceeding what China’s exports account for in most of theirs. Add Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Lithuania, Mongolia, New Zealand, Norway, Palau, the Philippines, Sweden, and the United Kingdom—all countries that Beijing has coerced in the past—and the collective share of China’s imports is 39 percent. These states all produce critical goods on which China is especially dependent. China gets nearly 60 percent of its iron ore, essential to its steel production, from Australia. It gets more than 80 percent of its bulldozers and Kentucky bluegrass seed, important for sowing fields, from the United States. More than 90 percent of China’s supplies of scores of other goods—cardboard, ballpoint pens, cultured pearls—are sourced from Japan. And 80 percent of China’s whiskey comes from the United Kingdom.
To build a bloc that can stop Chinese coercion, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and the United States must first come to an agreement among themselves. The first three governments are the United States’ key allies in the Pacific, and all four nations are prominent market democracies and the core stakeholders in the region’s liberal political and economic order. A commitment to join forces would not be without risk, but all have been prime targets of Chinese economic predation and have a powerful incentive to collaborate.
These four states must then take stock of which other countries are willing and able to join in, working through existing partnerships such as the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework to promote the strategy. The best candidates for membership would be the 12 other states most profoundly affected by Chinese economic coercion. Many of these countries may be very weak compared with China. But if they joined forces with the four main members, they would enjoy formidable leverage: for 406 items, China imports more than 70 percent of what it uses from one of these 16 states; for 171 of those items, the import figure rises to 90 percent. (Lithuania and Palau do not produce any of these goods, but both are frontline states in need of protection, and so they should be welcomed into the coalition.) The four founding countries could also approach the European Union, which is currently considering milder measures to counter Beijing’s coercion, to see whether it is interested in joining their effort.
The impact of these imports is far from trivial. For example, China relies on Japan for more than 70 percent of its supplies of 114 items, amounting to over $6.2 billion in trade, and for more than 90 percent of its supplies of 47 items, worth over $1.7 billion. China is over 70 percent dependent on U.S. producers for 94 items, totaling over $6.0 billion, and 43 items for which China is over 90 percent dependent on U.S. producers, worth over $1.5 billion. Added up, all 406 of the “high dependence” goods produced by coerced states are worth more than $31.2 billion to China.
STRENGTH IN NUMBERS
But having the capability to fight back is only half the battle. The other half is political will: For collective resilience to be credible, countries must be willing to sign up for it in the face of fierce Chinese resistance. Beijing is likely to use a combination of carrots, such as offering discounted digital infrastructure, and sticks, such as more export restrictions, to deter countries from joining and to try to peel them off if they do. States will need to build enough domestic political support to withstand the external pressure and resist the temptation to free-ride by accepting coalition support without ever actually sanctioning China.
Given that most participants would be democracies, this will prove difficult. But the pact’s bigger countries can take several steps to help smaller or poorer states endure the discomfort. They can create a collective compensation fund for losses and offer alternative export or import markets to divert trade in response to Chinese sanctions. Bigger states can also provide clear reassurances to smaller powers that they would not be left high and dry if Beijing slapped them with sanctions. That means the larger countries, particularly the original four, would need to delineate clear actions they would take to restrict important exports to China if Beijing bullied any pact member, even if those steps were economically costly to them. The four organizing members would also have to agree on what types of bullying would elicit a response. Disputes over trade that could be adjudicated by the WTO, such as whether China can adjudicate Western technology patent protections in its courts, would not meet the threshold. The trigger would be coercive Chinese economic actions taken for political purposes.
During the Cold War, Washington routinely played dirty to protect the liberal order.
Yet despite the challenges, states would likely recognize that joining the pact and staying the course is worth the short-term costs. They would need to recognize and explain to their citizens that ultimately, ending Chinese economic coercion would be in their long-term interests. China could initially fight back against the new group by finding alternative suppliers for one, two, or even several high-dependence goods. But if tariffs, nontariff barriers, or embargoes were applied to a wide range of the 406 high-dependence items made by prospective coalition members, the costs of finding new suppliers might cause Beijing to think twice before taking coercive actions. Eventually, China would have to stop such behavior, which would result in a level playing field for all of the collective’s participants.
The participating states could feel confident that China would indeed stop. Despite its authoritarian system, China has proved quite sensitive to supply chain obstacles, evidenced by the fact that it rarely applies sanctions to imports of high-dependence goods. Beijing was happy to cut off South Korea from Chinese tourists, but it has not sanctioned Samsung; it needs the company’s memory chips. It has not touched Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, another critical supplier of computer chips, even as tensions with Taipei reach new heights. In all its sanctioning of Australia, Beijing never so much as threatened Australian iron ore even though it is one of the country’s most lucrative exports.
If Beijing was unwilling to locate alternative sources for Australian iron ore at dependency levels of 60 percent, it will certainly be sensitive to the many goods for which it is more than 70 percent dependent on outside countries—not to mention the ones where its dependence exceeds 90 percent. Then there are the 40 products made in the United States and Japan on which China is 99 or 100 percent reliant. Beijing does not want to lose access to any of them, especially when it is already struggling from a general economic slowdown.
FAIR AND SQUARE
The idea of collective resilience may trouble proponents of free trade and globalization. But collective resilience is not a trade war strategy; it is a peer competition strategy. It is defensive, resting first on the threat to weaponize trade, not on the actual use of sanctions. If China does not use its economic power to coerce, there is no need to make good the threat.
The strategy is also clearly and narrowly targeted. Its participants are not trying to punish China just for the sake of doing so; the goal is not to undermine the nation’s economy. The goal is to deter acts of economic coercion that do not conform to WTO rules and are aimed at meeting Chinese political goals unrelated to trade. According to an analysis published by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, a nonprofit think tank, about a proposed European Union instrument to combat Chinese coercion, collective resilience could even comply with WTO regulations. China’s acts of economic hostility are beyond the remit of the organization’s laws, and nothing in the WTO rulebook prohibits states from engaging in self-defense.
That’s not to say that practicing economic resilience will never require sanctions on China. It may well do so, at least at first. But policymakers can rest easy knowing that any sanctions, if properly structured, would ultimately be in service of protecting economic interdependence. That notion may seem paradoxical, but sometimes conducting international relations requires living with contradictions. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time the United States has played dirty to keep a global system clean. During the Cold War, Washington routinely countenanced illiberal practices to protect the liberal order—for example, supporting anticommunist military regimes in South Korea and Taiwan as bulwarks against more brutal nearby powers. Today, the West may need to compromise on its free trade principles if it wants to prevent Beijing from corrupting globalization. It may need to be aggressive. A successful defense, after all, requires a good offense—including in great-power competition.
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World Faces ‘Millions More’ Infections as China Reopens Borders Amid COVID Surge: Pompeo
China 'knowingly infecting' people around the globe, says former secretary of state
By Dorothy Li January 2, 2023
Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has accused the Chinese regime of “knowingly infecting people all across the globe” as the country prepares to reopen its border amid a record surge of COVID infections.
China is grappling with an explosive COVID-19 outbreak that has yet to peak. About 248 million people, or 18 percent of the country’s population, were estimated to have been infected by the virus between Dec. 1 to 20, according to a memo from an internal meeting of the country’s top health regulator leaked online.
As the virus swept through the nation of 1.4 billion, the regime announced last week it will reopen its borders on Jan. 8, scrapping one of the last remaining curbs from the strict zero-COVID policy that upended daily life for hundreds of millions and battered China’s economy.
During a Jan. 1 interview with entrepreneur and talk show host John Catsimatidis on The Cats Roundtable, Pompeo warned about the reemergence of chaotic scenes such as those that occurred in Italy at the onset of the pandemic.
“The data is no good. But it sounds like we might have as many as a million—a million, John, a million—Chinese people infected,” he continued.
“Fifty percent of their population traveling, there is no reason that we should allow the Chinese to do this, again, to send Chinese-infected persons around the world, knowingly infecting people all across the globe.”
International Concern
Since the onset of the pandemic, the communist regime has drawn mounting criticism for covering up COVID-related information. Amid the current explosive outbreak, the lack of transparent data has prompted international concern, particularly regarding the possibility of a new, stronger variant emerging out of China.
Italy, the first European nation to be hit hard by COVID-19 after the virus surfaced in China in late 2019, has moved quickly to mandate COVID-19 tests for all travelers coming from China, including those traveling through Italy to other destinations. “The measure is essential to ensure surveillance and detection of possible variants of the virus in order to protect the Italian population,” Italian health minister Orazio Schillaci told parliament on Dec. 28.
The main airport in Milan had already begun to screen arrivals from Beijing and Shanghai on Dec. 26. On the first flight from China to be tested, 35 out of 62 passengers tested positive for COVID-19, an Italian health official said.
The United States last week announced it will require passengers to present a negative COVID-19 result or proof of recovery before boarding a U.S.-bound flight from China. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the step is intended to slow the spread of COVID-19 in America amid the massive outbreak in China, given what it calls the “lack of adequate and transparent epidemiological and viral genomic sequence data being reported” from China. The agency is considering measures like sampling wastewater from international flights to track potential new variants.
In Sunday’s interview, Pompeo lambasted Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, warning the virus unleashed by the regime’s abrupt reopening could infect “millions more.”
“Xi got away with this once. I regret that he wasn’t held accountable,” the former lawmaker said. “He hasn’t been held accountable. But we should still do that for the 6 million people who died between spring of 20[20] and today, but he’s doing it again.”
“Just as in the spring of 20[20] he sent people around the world who he knew were infected. He’s doing the same darn thing again. He’s going to infect millions more, we shouldn’t let that happen.”
Doubts Over Official Data
Scenes of overwhelmed hospitals, people on intravenous drips by the roadside, and lines of hearses outside crematoria have stoked widespread distrust of the regime’s official COVID-19 information.
Regional data from Chinese provinces and cities recently estimated the infection rate may have exceeded 50 percent in some areas, painting a picture much grimmer than what the nation’s central authorities have disclosed. The infection rate in the southwestern province of Sichuan, which has a population of more than 84 million, is over 63 percent, according to a Dec. 26 statement by the Sichuan Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Despite the spiraling surge in infections, China only recognized one new COVID-19 death on Jan. 2, according to Reuters, pushing the total fatalities to 12 since the regime abruptly reversed course on Dec. 7.
Chinese health officials recently explained that they define a COVID-death to be an individual who dies from pneumonia or respiratory failure caused by COVID-19. That excludes deaths from other COVID-related causes, as well as the deaths of individuals with underlying diseases.
Michael Ryan, head of health emergencies at the World Health Organization, has said the narrow criteria would “very much underestimate the true death toll,” reported the New York Times on Dec. 23.
The World Health Organization on Dec. 30 once again urged China’s health officials to regularly share specific and real-time information on the COVID-19 situation in the country, as it continues to assess the latest surge in infections.
Lunar New Year Risk
Expectations for holiday travel have grown as China lifts travel and other harsh requirements for the first time in nearly three years.
China’s biggest holiday, Lunar New Year, begins on Jan. 22 this year. During the holiday, the country’s railway network is expected to carry 5.5 million passengers, state broadcaster CCTV has said.
Authorities at Tibet’s spectacular Potala Palace said it would open for visitors on Jan. 3, after shutting down last August due to a COVID-19 outbreak. Some hotels in the southern tourist resort of Sanya are fully booked for Lunar New Year, media have said.
Epoch Times Photo
Travelers walk at the departure hall of the Hong Kong International Airport in Hong Kong, on Dec. 30, 2022. (Anthony Kwan/Getty Images)
In recent days, state media have sought to reassure the public that the COVID-19 outbreak is under control and nearing its peak.
However, outside researchers predicted an alarming scenario for the first Lunar New Year festival after China’s reopening. By Jan. 23, the second day of the Lunar New Year, the country may see as many as 25,000 people dying from COVID-19 each day, according to the latest estimate by Airfinity, a London-based health analytics firm. Infections are predicted to reach their first peak on Jan. 13, with 3.7 million cases a day.
Currently, the virus is infecting 1.8 million people in China each day, with cumulative cases totaling 20.4 million since Dec. 1, Airfinity said in a statement released Dec. 29 and updated with even bleaker numbers Dec. 30. That indicates that China is likely seeing 11,000 virus-related deaths a day, Airfinity said, more than doubling its estimate from a week ago.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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China Bids to Rule the Commercial Waves
Beijing is building a maritime logistics empire that could be an advantage in a future conflict with the West.
By Christopher R. O’Dea
Jan. 9, 2023 6:15 pm ET
A shipping company with deep ties to Chinese state-owned companies purchased container terminals in New York and New Jersey in December, raising serious questions about the ability and willingness of the West to counter China’s strategic capability. China’s growing maritime commercial logistics empire poses a direct threat to the liberal international order. Beijing is building a platform for control of oceanic commerce and an amphibious invasion force that is extending the frontier of Chinese Communist Party influence to U.S. shores.
The consolidation of the global container-shipping industry into three alliances in 2016 opened the door for a new type of global organization operating largely beyond the reach of national regulators. Shipping companies formed the alliances to manage cargo capacity after price cutting led to the bankruptcy of a major shipping line in 2016. Alliance regulations bar shipping lines from fixing prices but allow them significant leeway to buy terminals and inland logistics assets. Operationally, alliance members often concentrate container service at alliance-owned terminals, which can make ports more dependent on a dominant alliance.
China controls one of the shipping alliances. The Ocean Alliance is dominated by Cosco Shipping, a Chinese state-owned company that is the world’s second-largest operator of ports—and is ultimately accountable to the Communist Party. The other members of the Ocean Alliance are Taiwan-based Evergreen Line and CMA CGM, a family-owned company based in Marseille, France, with deep ties to Chinese state-owned companies.
Cosco and other Chinese state-owned port and shipping companies have been steadily expanding their holdings in the West since 2000. By some analysts’ count, Chinese companies own or operate terminals in 96 ports in 53 countries. But it is the relative handful of terminals Chinese state-owned companies control in ports serving major population centers in the West that creates the greatest exposure to Chinese leverage.
Control of ports and terminals gives China economic and political influence over host-country governments where Chinese state-owned enterprises operate critical infrastructure. The contracts are even referred to as “concessions,” aptly implying that Western governments accept the superior containerized logistics capabilities that the Chinese companies have developed since acquiring the American technology in the late 1970s.
The newest salvo in China’s maritime commercial expansion came on Dec. 7, when CMA CGM said it is buying container terminals in New York and New Jersey. Most of the scant mainstream news coverage failed to note CMA CGM’s significant financial and operational links with Chinese state-owned companies. In 2013, CMA CGM sold 49% of its own terminal subsidiary to China Merchants Holdings (International). In 2015 the Export-Import Bank of China extended to CMA CGM $1 billion in financing to buy ships from Chinese shipyards. That funding has helped CMA CGM become one of the largest logistics enterprises in the world, with commanding positions in the supply chains for automotive parts and electronics. Satellite photos of Chinese shipyards show CMA CGM’s newest liquid-natural-gas-powered vessels being built alongside Chinese aircraft carriers.
Through the Maritime Security Program, the U.S. Transportation Department maintains a fleet of privately owned vessels intended to provide shipping for national-security purposes. This fleet includes seven vessels operated by container-shipping company APL, which CMA CGM acquired in 2016. In 2021 the Transportation Department approved replacement of an eighth APL vessel with one from CMA CGM.
U.S. allies including Greece, Canada, Germany and Israel have turned to Cosco and other Chinese state-owned shipping companies to invest in their terminals or build entire ports, sometimes over strenuous objections from Washington. Singapore and France are dependent on Chinese container volume or have national-champion companies that are business partners with the Chinese companies. If the bellicose rhetoric about imminent naval war with China leads to combat in the Western Pacific, prompting China to allow only Ocean Alliance vessels access to its ports, will those countries risk being cut off from Asian supply lines to side with the U.S.? A cold-eyed appraisal of the logistical situation suggests that’s a long shot.
Adm. Raymond Spruance, who helped devise the island-hopping strategy the U.S. used in the Pacific Theater during World War II—and then carried out the plan as commander of Fifth Fleet—wrote that a sound logistics plan determines the success or failure of military operations. The Chinese have such a plan for their economic campaign against America and the West. At the moment, the U.S. has nothing.
Mr. O’Dea is an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute and author of a forthcoming book, “Ships of State: The Maritime Logistics Foundations of the New Chinese Empire.”
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/china-warns-blinken-to-mind-his-manners-on-next-visit/ar-AA16savv?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=be38b99995b84544b4806af660110120
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the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric plant near San Luis, Ecuador.
By Ryan DubeFollow
and Gabriele SteinhauserFollow
| Photographs by Isadora Romero for The Wall Street Journal
Jan. 20, 2023 9:45 am ET
SAN LUIS, Ecuador—Built near a spewing volcano, it was the biggest infrastructure project ever in this country, a concrete colossus bankrolled by Chinese cash and so important to Beijing that China’s leader, Xi Jinping, spoke at the 2016 inauguration.
Today, thousands of cracks have emerged in the $2.7 billion Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric plant, government engineers said, raising concerns that Ecuador’s biggest source of power could break down. At the same time, the Coca River’s mountainous slopes are eroding, threatening to damage the dam.
“We could lose everything,” said Fabricio Yépez, an engineer at the University of San Francisco in Quito who has closely tracked the project’s problems. “And we don’t know if it could be tomorrow or in six months.”
It is one of many Chinese-financed projects around the world plagued with construction flaws.
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During the past decade, China handed out a trillion dollars in international loans as part of Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative, intended to develop economic trade and expand China’s influence across Asia, Africa and Latin America. Those loans made Beijing the largest government lender to the developing world by far, with its loans totaling nearly as much as those of all other governments combined, according to the World Bank.
Yet China’s lending practices have been criticized by foreign leaders, economists and others, who say the program has contributed to debt crises in places like Sri Lanka and Zambia, and that many countries have limited ways to repay the loans. Some projects have also been called mismatches for a country’s infrastructure needs or damaging to the environment.
Now, low-quality construction on some of the projects risks crippling key infrastructure and saddling nations with even more costs for years to come as they try to remedy problems.
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“We are suffering today because of the bad quality of equipment and parts” in Chinese-built projects, said René Ortiz, Ecuador’s former energy minister and ex-secretary general of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
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Government engineers said there are thousands of cracks in the hydroelectric plant, built by Chinese company Sinohydro.
PHOTO: CRISTINA VEGA/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
China’s Embassy in Ecuador didn’t respond to requests for comment on the hydroelectric project. In a recent letter published on the embassy’s Twitter account in response to a report by the Foundation for Citizenship and Development, the local chapter of anticorruption watchdog Transparency International, on China’s lending practices in Ecuador, the embassy said Chinese loans and projects provided “tangible benefits” to Ecuador at a time when the country was in urgent need of financing.
Chinese money has been used to build everything from a port in Pakistan to roads in Ethiopia and a transmission line in Brazil.
Chinese construction companies often bid for government projects or directly approach local officials with projects with a promise that they can easily arrange financing packages from Chinese banks and insurers.
That, developing-country officials say, has given Chinese companies a leg up, because it means governments eager to build a new dam or road don’t have to drum up their own funding. In Africa, more than 60% of the revenue major international contractors collected in 2019 went to Chinese companies, according to a 2021 paper by the China-Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University.
Critics say the relatively easy availability of Chinese loans for Chinese construction can lead to inflated project costs because there is less pressure on governments to minimize expenses.
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Construction defects
Flaws in some of the Chinese-built projects have come to light.
In Pakistan, officials shut down the Neelum-Jhelum hydroelectric plant last year after detecting cracks in a tunnel that transports water through a mountain to drive a turbine.
The head of the country’s electricity regulator, Tauseef Farooqui, told Pakistan’s senate in November that he was concerned the tunnel could collapse just four years after the 969-megawatt plant became operational. That would be disastrous for a nation that has been battered by rising energy prices, said Mr. Farooqui. The closure of the plant has already cost Pakistan about $44 million a month in higher power costs since July, according to the regulator.
Hydropower plants can have operating lives of up to 100 years, according to the World Bank.
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The Chinese-built Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower Project in Nosari, Pakistan, shown in 2017, has been shut down because officials said they detected cracks.
PHOTO: SAJJAD QAYYUM/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
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Uganda identified defects in the Chinese-built Isimba Hydro Power Plant, shown under construction in 2017.
PHOTO: ZHANG GAIPING/XINHUA/ZUMA PRESS
Uganda’s power generation company said it has identified more than 500 construction defects in a Chinese-built 183-megawatt hydropower plant on the Nile river that has suffered frequent breakdowns since it went into operation in 2019. China International Water & Electric Corp., which led construction of the Isimba Hydro Power Plant, failed to build a floating boom to protect the dam from water weeds and other debris, which has led to clogged turbines and power outages, according to the Uganda Electricity Generation Co., or UEGC. There have also been leaks in the roof of the plant’s power house, where the generators and turbines are located, UEGC said. The plant cost $567.7 million to build and was financed mostly through a $480 million loan from the Export-Import Bank of China.
Completion of another Chinese-built hydropower plant further down the Nile, the 600-megawatt Karuma Hydro Power Project, is three years behind schedule, a delay that Ugandan officials have blamed on various construction defects, including cracked walls. UEGC also said the Chinese contractor, Sinohydro Corp., installed faulty cables, switches and a fire extinguishing system that need to be replaced. Earlier this year, the government had to start paying back the $1.44 billion it borrowed from the Export-Import Bank of China to finance the project, even as the plant remains inoperational.
Sinohydro and China International Water didn’t respond to requests for comment on the Ugandan projects.
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In Angola, 10 years after the first tenants moved into Kilamba Kiaxi, a vast social housing project outside the capital of Luanda, many locals are complaining about cracked walls, moldy ceilings and poor construction.
The project, built by China’s CITIC Group, was initially funded through a $2.5 billion, oil-backed credit line from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China that was later refinanced by the China Development Bank, according to William & Mary’s Aid Data Research Lab.
“Our building has a lot of cracks,” said Aida Francisco, who lives in a four-bedroom apartment in Kilamba with her husband and three sons. Like many other middle-class families in Kilamba, she is purchasing the apartment through a rent-to-buy program. Humidity collects in the apartment’s walls, causing mold, Ms. Francisco said, and a lot of the building materials, including doors and railings, are of poor quality.
When she first moved to Kilamba in 2016, Ms. Francisco said, Chinese contractors still came to fix problems. But in recent years many buildings, including hers, have fallen into disrepair, especially as many tenants, who are responsible for the upkeep, lost their jobs amid Angola’s economic crisis.
“If you see these buildings, they won’t last long,” said Ms. Francisco. “They’re falling apart bit by bit.”
A spokeswoman for CITIC said humidity issues in a small number of units in Kilamba were due to tenants making improper renovations and that the company had completed required maintenance.
The Chinese government didn’t respond to requests for comment on criticism of Chinese-built infrastructure in Africa and Asia. A spokesman for Angola’s ministry for Construction and Public Works didn’t respond to requests for comment.
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Many Chinese projects fulfill real development needs, especially in countries that struggle to get other financing to build necessary infrastructure. In Argentina’s poor, northern province of Jujuy, PowerChina built the Cauchari solar park, South America’s biggest solar project. At more than 13,000 feet above sea level, it is able to power some 160,000 homes, according to Argentina’s government. In Brazil, China’s State Grid built one of the world’s longest transmission lines, connecting the Belo Monte dam in the northeast to southern cities some 1,550 miles away.
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Erosion along Ecuador’s Coca River, which some geologists blame on the Coca Codo Sinclair plant, has destroyed stretches of a highway, an oil pipeline and part of a nearby town.
Surge in Ecuador spending
In Latin America, Ecuador was at the forefront of Beijing’s push into the region, with Quito accessing more in loans than any country except two much bigger nations, Venezuela and Brazil, according to the Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank.
After a 2008 sovereign-debt default, then-president Rafael Correa, a leftist who during his tenure from 2007 to 2017 often clashed with the U.S. and railed against multilateral lenders, turned to China to finance a surge in public spending. In total, Chinese banks lent Ecuador $18 billion during Mr. Correa’s term.
Ecuadorean lawmakers, former government ministers and anticorruption activists say the loans lacked transparency, with contracts given to companies without public bids, resulting in shoddy construction, high costs and graft.
In the recent letter published on the Chinese Embassy in Ecuador’s Twitter account, it said the financing was agreed on during friendly negotiations with Ecuador and fully complies with laws and regulations in both countries.
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Current government officials and Ecuadorean economists said some projects made little sense, including the expropriation of thousands of acres of farmland in an Andean valley to build a new metropolis called Yachay City that was supposed to turn Ecuador into a regional tech power. The Export-Import Bank of China provided a $200 million loan for early infrastructure works. Today, the project has been abandoned, with a $6.3 million supercomputer that was supposed to be used by researchers sitting out of doors and unused.
In 2019, the comptroller general’s office reviewed the construction of 200 Chinese-built schools, reporting that some of the buildings had problems with their foundations and others had classrooms with sloping floors and exposed cables. Fifty-seven of the schools were finished behind schedule, the comptroller general’s office said.
“Correa spent on many projects that were not adequate,” said Vicente Albornoz, an economist at the University of Las Americas in Quito. “And China was funding Correa’s spending [on the projects].”
Mr. Correa said in an interview the money boosted Ecuador’s development with new highways, hospitals and schools. Four Chinese-built hydroelectric projects provided clean power and reduced reliance on imported fossil fuels. The Chinese projects also improved a once unreliable power grid that led to regular blackouts in Quito. Today, 90% of Ecuador’s electricity comes from hydro, compared with 55% in 2007, according to the state utility.
“China’s relationship with Ecuador was an example in Latin America,” said Mr. Correa. “We did things that changed the history of the country.”
Sinohydro did the construction and flew in hundreds of Chinese workers to build the Coca Codo Sinclair plant. Detail of a book in Chinese and Spanish with information and photographs about the project.
The former president, who was convicted in 2020 of corruption charges in a case involving payments to his party in exchange for public contracts, is in exile in Belgium. He denies wrongdoing.
China’s most ambitious project in Ecuador was Coca Codo Sinclair, which Ecuadorean engineers first studied for the Coca River in the 1970s. Back then, they considered it a risky venture due to its steep cost and location near an active volcano.
But Ecuador wanted the dam to improve an electrical grid that regularly suffered blackouts and relied on costly energy imports. Today, it supplies about a third of Ecuador’s electricity.
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During Mr. Correa’s term, the China Development Bank agreed to finance 85% of Coca Codo Sinclair’s initial cost, with a 6.9% interest rate. Sinohydro did the construction and flew in hundreds of Chinese workers to build the power plant between 2010 and 2016.
The China Development Bank and Sinohydro didn’t respond to requests for comment.
In September, prosecutors searched the office of Sinohydro over allegations it paid bribes to people close to Mr. Correa’s vice president, Lenin Moreno, when the contract was awarded to the Chinese firm. No one has been charged in that ongoing investigation. Mr. Moreno, who later served as president from 2017 to 2021, has publicly denied wrongdoing.
Larger capacity
Some engineers questioned the project early on, saying that the environmental studies were out of date. The plant’s 1,500-megawatt capacity was much larger than the originally envisioned capacity of about 1,000 megawatts, adding to costs and creating more capacity than the river could power, according to former energy officials and congressional investigators. In 2014, 13 Chinese and Ecuadorean employees were crushed to death in a construction accident.
Since the 2016 opening, officials from the state electricity utility have found more than 17,000 cracks in the power plant’s eight turbines, according to the state utility. It blames the fissures on faulty steel imported from China. In 2021, the utility took Sinohydro to international arbitration in Chile, which is ongoing, over demands to repair the damage.
“No crack is acceptable,” the utility said in response to questions from The Wall Street Journal. “They could result in the equipment losing its structural integrity, causing it to collapse.”
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President Guillermo Lasso’s government has refused to officially take over management of the plant from Sinohydro, as was planned at the completion of construction, until the cracks are repaired. Numerous attempts to fix the cracks have failed, utility officials said.
“Over my dead body will I accept this poorly built plant,” Energy Minister Fernando Santos told local media in November.
In San Luis, locals like Adriana Carranza got jobs with Sinohydro, which hired her to cook for Chinese workers. The 14-hour days were long, and her Chinese boss didn’t speak Spanish. But the job allowed her to save enough to build a house for her family, she said. At home, she still cooks sweet-and-sour chicken and other Chinese dishes.
But in 2020, the Coca River’s slopes began collapsing, creating thunderous crashes and rattling the ground like an earthquake. The erosion destroyed Ecuador’s biggest waterfall. It took out a stretch of a key road and oil pipeline. The Pink House, a brothel in San Luis that locals say was popular with both Chinese and Ecuadorean workers, tumbled into the river. Ms. Carranza said a neighbor’s home went over the cliff.
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Adriana Carranza, shown with her daughter, Darina Zambrano, and their dog, had to flee San Luis last year because of dangerous erosion along the Coca River.
Fearing for her family’s safety in her own home, Ms. Carranza fled San Luis in March, salvaging anything she could from her house, taking windows, doors and even the roof. “I became deeply depressed, I couldn’t get out of bed,” Ms. Carranza said. “We’ve lost everything.”
Ecuador’s state utility said the erosion is a natural phenomenon in an area prone to natural disasters. Some geologists agree, but others blamed Coca Codo Sinclair, saying that its concrete structures so disrupted the river’s natural flow and accumulation of sediments that the fast-moving water began to cut into the river banks as it descends from the Andes on its way to the Amazon rainforest.
“The erosion is a process that would normally occur over thousands or millions of years, but the dam has accelerated it in a matter of just five years,” said Carolina Bernal, a geologist at the National Polytechnic School, a public university in Quito.
Ecuador has unsuccessfully tried to stop the erosion as the river nears Coca Codo Sinclair, including by placing shipping containers in the water to slow the current. They were quickly washed away.
Ms. Bernal said the government will likely need to relocate a key part of the plant—the project’s water intake—which would cost millions of dollars, before that structure is destroyed by the erosion.
Nancy Chicaiza, a San Luis resident, has little hope for the survival of her town, which once bustled with Chinese workers who bought drinks and snacks at her bodega. She now expects the erosion will eventually wipe out all of San Luis.
“Coca Codo was initially seen as really good,” said Ms. Chicaiza. “Nobody thought we’d be facing these consequences.”
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Nancy Chicaiza and others stood on the edge of an eroded area that they blame on faulty construction of the Coca Codo Sinclair plant.
Nicholas Bariyo contributed to this article.
Write to Ryan Dube at ryan.dube@dowjones.com and Gabriele Steinhauser at gabriele.steinhauser@wsj.com
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https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/02/13/china-belt-and-road-initiative-infrastructure-development-geopolitics/
China’s Belt and Road to Nowhere: Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy is a “shadow of its former self.”
Foreign Policy ^ | 02/13/2023 | Christina Lu
Nearly a decade after its inception, momentum behind China’s sweeping Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) appears to be slowing as lending slumps and projects stall—forcing Chinese President Xi Jinping to again rethink a floundering initiative that he once hailed as his “project of the century.” After doling out hundreds of billions of dollars, experts say China’s lending for BRI projects has plummeted, largely a casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic and the country’s own economic slowdown. Support has also waned as partner countries drown in debt and fractures emerge—literally—in projects, fueling uncertainty about the future of the sprawling initiative.
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BRI
failing.
Great news ! :-D
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BRI
failing.
Great news ! :-D
Belt and Loansharking Initiative.
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China as a Lender of Last Resort
Beijing's high interest loans have been criticized for creating “debt traps” for cash-strapped borrowers.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Chinese Rescue Lending
(click to enlarge)
China has become a major rescue lender for heavily indebted countries. In 2022, loans to countries in debt distress accounted for 60 percent of China’s overseas lending portfolio – up sharply from just 5 percent in 2010.
Over the past two decades, Chinese institutions have provided $240 billion in rescue lending to 22 developing countries. Of that sum, $170 billion was provided through the People’s Bank of China’s swap line network – a system whereby central banks agree to exchange currencies. The rest was offered through other means such as bridge loans or balance of payments support by Chinese state-owned banks and enterprises, including the China Development Bank. They're provided, generally with high interest rates, mostly to middle-income countries, which account for four-fifths of China’s overall lending. Low-income countries are given grace periods and maturity extensions.
However, these loans, often doled out as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, have been highly criticized for creating “debt traps” for cash-strapped borrowers. Countries like Sri Lanka, Zambia and Ghana are currently in talks with Beijing to restructure their debt. But as more governments struggle to make payments amid a global downturn, there’s growing concern about China’s ability to refinance the loans and avoid financial problems at home if debtors can’t repay them.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-eu-s-divided-approach-on-china-might-be-coming-to-an-end-and-the-u-s-is-unlikely-to-be-happy-about-it/ar-AA1a00so?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=1cc858e5d86d474b855ec0ed48089646&ei=28
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19555/west-training-china-military
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MYANMAR
With U.S. focused elsewhere, China stokes Asian hot spot in ‘cold war’
BY GUY TAYLOR THE WASHINGTON TIMES
A violent civil war between the Chinabacked military junta ruling Myanmar and a patchwork of pro-democracy rebels in the Southeast Asian nation is not getting much attention in the West, but China’s leadership increasingly views the clash as a strategic front line of a “cold war” in its global competition with the United States.
The Biden administration is slowpedaling in response, say regional analysts, who add that the White House lacks a clear strategy for halting Beijing’s growing influence in Myanmar, a vital land bridge between China and the Indian Ocean.
The lack of attention could lead to a clear strategic loss for the U.S. and its allies in an area of growing interest to China’s communist leadership.
“China has been steadily expanding its influence in Myanmar for a considerable period,” said Ye Myo Hein, a prodemocracy scholar and visiting fellow with the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.
He told The Washington Times that China views Myanmar “as a strategic hot spot at the intersection of its borders, South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean.”
Beijing’s increased focus contrasts with the Biden administration’s “traditional view of Myanmar as strategically unimportant,” said Ye Myo Hein, who is pressing U.S. officials to “develop a clear strategy to enhance [Washington’s] strategic influence in the country.”
In a geopolitical competition, successive U.S. administrations have scrambled to shore up alliances with countries across the Indo-Pacific to counter China’s economic and diplomatic rise in the region. Beijing’s development model is sharply at odds with U.S. support for free markets and democracy.
Meanwhile, Myanmar’s junta is pulling no punches to crush a prodemocracy insurgency. Ye Myo Hein said the junta has carried out “more than 700 airstrikes, primarily in civilian areas,” since 2021.
“These airstrikes have been largely indiscriminate, resulting in significant casualties to innocent civilians,” he said. He pointed to one strike in April that killed nearly 170 people in central Myanmar.
A recent Peace Research Institute Oslo report said at least 6,000 civilians have been killed and more than 1 million have been internally displaced since 2021.
The conflict has spiraled since a military coup overthrew Myanmar’s elected civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and head of the country’s largest political party. Despite complaints about the government, U.S. policymakers highly regarded Myanmar under Ms. Suu Kyi. Some refer to the country by its old name, Burma.
Beijing tacitly supported the 2021 junta takeover. Widespread protests sparked a harsh military crackdown, the arrests of Ms. Suu Kyi and top government officials, and a continuing armed resistance to the new military leadership.
Anti-coup militias, known as the People’s Defense Forces, have banded with smaller separatist groups long active in the country to wage a guerrilla war against the junta-controlled army and air force across Myanmar’s seven ethnic states.
The military government has imported more than $1 billion worth of arms and raw materials to manufacture its weapons since 2021, according to the United Nations. The U.N. says China, Russia, Singapore, India and Thailand are the most prominent suppliers.
How the anti-junta rebels acquire arms is less clear.
In a complex twist, Ye Myo Hein said, a key avenue is through the pro-democracy movement’s ties to ethnic armed groups along China’s border, many of which also fall under China’s sway, suggesting that Beijing has been wielding influence on both sides.
The insurgency’s dynamics are murky, particularly with rebel efforts to lure some military sectors to shift their allegiance to the prodemocracy movement.
Units of one ethnic militia in eastern Myanmar that are nominally part of the military switched sides in June. The Associated Press reported that units from the Border Guard Forces were thought to be the first militaryaffi liated militia units to change sides since the junta took power.
Several U.S. lawmakers are pressing the Biden administration to develop a more robust strategy to support the rebels. In April 2022, the Democratic-controlled House passed the Burma Act, calling on the White House to engage with Myanmar’s rebels.
The Senate has yet to take up that bill, but the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act that President Biden signed in November incorporated language from the Burma Act, including a requirement that the administration clarify its policy and an authorization for expanding U.S. sanctions against the junta.
The language notably authorized funding for “non-lethal assistance” for armed People’s Defense Forces rebels in Myanmar and “technical” support for the militias and the broader pro-democracy movement.
It remains to be seen how the support will be conveyed and how much impact it will have. The administration has expanded sanctions that began after the 2021 military coup.
The Treasury Department sanctioned a group of Myanmar arms dealers in March 2022. A press release did not mention China or other foreign providers of weaponry.
More recently, the Treasury Department sanctioned Myanmar individuals and entities involved in importing jet fuel for the junta and two junta-connected banks. The measures freeze their assets in the United States.
“The United States will not waver in its support for the people of Burma as they seek peace, justice and a genuine democratic future for their country,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said upon targeting the banks on June 21.
Critics are skeptical. The group Justice for Myanmar praised the financial sanctions but said “far more needs to be done to systematically target the junta’s financial and arms procurement networks.”
The group specifically urged sanctions against Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise, “which continues to bankroll the junta’s ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
The U.S. administration’s focus on countering Russia in Ukraine has overshadowed its gradual sanctions, and China’s backing for the junta in Myanmar has been quietly expanding.
“With the world distracted by the war in Ukraine, and having little bandwidth to focus on the brutality and bloodshed in Myanmar, China has … dramatically ramped up support for Myanmar, further entrenching a growing split between the world’s autocracies and democracies,” Joshua Kurlantzick, a Southeast Asia fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote for the think tank’s website last year.
China’s growing influence Identifying the parameters of Chinese support for the junta can be difficult, but Beijing appears to be profiting strategically and economically from business with Myanmar’s hard-line military rulers.
An analysis by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace noted that the Chinese state mining company Wanbao continues to invest in Myanmar. Many multinational corporations withdrew after the 2021 military coup.
An August 2022 report by the London-based Business & Human Rights Resource Center said Wanbao Mining, a subsidiary of Chinese arms manufacturer Norinco, has been operating a controversial copper mine in Myanmar’s Sagaing Region in partnership with the military- owned Myanma Economic Holdings since 2010.
Jason Tower, director of the Burma program at the U.S. Institute of Peace, is among those suggesting that China’s support is conditioned on a junta pledge to support Beijing’s sovereignty claims over disputed islands in the South China Sea. The United States and China’s smaller neighbors throughout the region reject China’s claims.
Mr. Tower tweeted last year that the Chinese government is “propping up” the junta by vowing to work toward implementing the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor and expand cross-border electrification, connectivity and industrial zones. Beijing gave the junta roughly $90 million for the work last year.
Ye Myo Hein told The Times that the recent inclusion of Burma Act language in the NDAA was “perceived by Beijing as an increased U.S. involvement in Myanmar and a threat to China’s interests.”
“China responded by actively supporting the junta as a countermeasure to the U.S.’s actions,” he said, and “recent actions by China in Myanmar clearly serve as clear indication that Beijing perceived the crisis in Myanmar through a cold war lens.”
“It appears that U.S. policymakers may not be fully aware of such development, as Washington has not yet recognized Myanmar as a strategically significant hot spot and has yet to formulate a comprehensive policy and strategy in line with the Burma Act,” Ye Myo Hein said.
“The administration has exhibited a clear reluctance to fully and effectively implement the Burma Act, appearing more focused on mitigating the associated risks,” he said. The White House, he said, should “emphasize the shared interest between the United States and China in promoting regional stability” in a way that “implies that the military junta in Myanmar must be removed as it undermines this shared objective.”
The administration should also convey to Beijing that U.S. assistance to the People’s Defense Forces is “not a threat to China, but rather in line with Beijing’s own goals,” as the junta “will only consider a peaceful negotiated settlement if it sees no path to military victory, making U.S. assistance an avenue to support this objective.
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Germany Sets Out on 'De-Risking' Its Relations With China
Jul 20, 2023 | 17:40 GMT
Germany's new push to de-risk its relations with China highlights growing operational, reputational and financial risks for German companies that are particularly exposed to the Asian giant. On July 13, the German government published its long-awaited, first-ever China strategy, which focuses on ''de-risking'' its ties with the Asian superpower (a view that Berlin shares with the broader European Union) through a three-prong approach. The most important element of the strategy is diversifying Berlin's trade and economic ties with other countries as a way to reduce its reliance on the Chinese market as an export and investment destination, as well as its reliance on China for supplies of critical raw materials (such as lithium and rare earth minerals). Secondly, Germany will seek to further reduce the presence of Chinese companies (like Huawei) in the country's critical infrastructure (like its 5G network). And as the final pillar, the strategy document promises to address calls from the European Union to reduce sensitive technology transfers to China that could increase the Asian country's intelligence and military capabilities by, for example, implementing the outbound investment screening and export controls proposed in the European Commission's new Economic Security Strategy.
In its new China strategy, Germany pledges to continue strengthening the country's military presence and cooperation with partners in the Indo-Pacific. When it comes to Taiwan, the document confirms Germany's formal adherence to the ''One China'' policy, but also reiterates Berlin's intent to expand its ties with Taipei and its stance that a change in the island's status quo would be acceptable only through peaceful means and mutual consent.
On June 20, the European Commission presented its first-ever economic security strategy, which stressed the need to ''de-risk'' the bloc's economic relations by restricting EU members' exports to and investments in adversarial countries. While not explicitly called out by name, China was heavily implied as the main target of the strategy, which highlighted the risk of becoming too reliant on ''a single country, especially one with systemically divergent values, models and interests.''
Germany's new China strategy acknowledges that Beijing is increasingly becoming a ''systemic rival'' due to its efforts to change the rules-based international order and to expand its relationship with Russia. This largely echoes the National Security Strategy that Berlin published in June, which described China as a ''partner, competitor and systemic rival'' and noted that Berlin's competition with Beijing had increased in recent years amid the latter's push to ''deliberately exe[rt] its economic power to reach political goals.'' Similarly, the Bundesamt fur Verfassungsschutz (BfV), Germany's domestic intelligence agency, deemed China as ''the greatest threat'' in terms of foreign direct investment and scientific and economic espionage in its annual report published in June.
The three parties in Germany's ruling coalition agreed to formulate a new China strategy as part of government formation talks in late 2021. However, infighting within the fractious coalition government significantly delayed the process.
The strategy confirms Germany's desire to abandon its former policy of pure economic engagement with autocracies (namely, China and Russia), which underpinned its economic success of the past decades but has proven increasingly risky in today's changing geopolitical landscape. Its new China strategy marks a shift from the policy Germany had pursued for almost two decades under the leadership of former Chancellor Angela Merkel, which focused on engagement with China under the guiding principle of ''Change through Trade.'' Through this strategy, Berlin had hoped to influence Beijing (and autocratic regimes in general, including Russia) to become more liberal and democratic in exchange for a mutually beneficial strengthening of trade relations. As a result, China became Germany's largest trading partner, a key source of critical raw materials and technologies for the energy transition, and a crucial market for German industries in the automotive, technology and chemical sectors. However, China's growing authoritarianism, human rights violations, increasingly aggressive posture in the Taiwan Strait and in the South China Sea, and ever-closer ties with Moscow (coupled with long-standing concerns over the lack of protection and unfair conditions for German companies operating in China) have led to a fundamental rethinking of this strategy both in Brussels and Berlin in recent years. On top of this, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the energy and economic crises that followed underscored the risks associated with Germany's deep reliance on Russian natural gas, the need to reduce economic dependence on other non-democratic countries such as China acquired even more urgency. While Germany has been able to wean itself off of Russian energy exports over the past year, its economy is still heavily reliant on China, leaving the European country exposed to risks that its new strategy document seeks to mitigate.
Critics of Germany's strategy of trade and economic engagement with China argue this was a way for Berlin to profit from China's economic rise while ignoring (or at least putting off) difficult conversations about non-economic issues concerning democracy and human rights.
Germany's trade relations with both China and Russia significantly contributed to its economic success and were in fact seen by many as a model of globalization. Access to China's ever-growing market enabled Germany to weather the 2008-09 global financial crisis and the 2010-11 eurozone crisis that followed by providing a vital export destination for German industries. Since then, Germany's economic dependence on China has only grown, with the volume of bilateral trade (imports and exports) reaching a record of nearly 300 billion euros ($337 billion) in 2022.
Prior to the war in Ukraine, Russia served as Germany's largest gas supplier. Now, Russian oil and gas exports to Germany are near zero following cut-offs in supply through the Nord Stream pipeline from Russia and thanks to efforts from the German government to phase out the remaining energy imports from Russia.
But while the document confirms Berlin's intent to recalibrate its relationship with Beijing, Germany will seek not to cut trade and economic ties with China. China remains a vital market and supplier for some of Germany's largest companies, including chemical producer BASF, tech giant Siemens, and carmakers Volkswagen and BMW. Berlin will thus still seek to avoid severing ties with Beijing, which would prove economically catastrophic. This will see the German government largely leave the onus of de-risking its relationship with China to profit-motivated companies and investors. In fact, the strategy urges German companies particularly exposed to China to take geopolitical risks into account in their decision-making ''so that state funds do not have to be tapped into in the event of a geopolitical crisis,'' but it fails to mention any concrete policy measures to ensure such warnings do not fall on deaf ears.
According to the German Council of Economic Experts' most recent annual report, China ranks first among the countries on which Germany is most dependent regarding strategically important imports, with 45.1% of total German imports of products with strong import dependencies coming from China.
A February 2023 report by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy shows how China dominates global and German supplies of rare earths and raw materials needed to produce technology classified as critical by the European Union, as well as supplies of a number of products (mainly electronics) that ''could not be replaced as a supplier in the short term.''
Although Germany's de-risking strategy does not include specific policy measures, future regulations may expose German companies to growing operational, reputational and financial risks. So far, Germany has not enforced its de-risking strategy with any concrete policy measures, enabling German companies to keep investing in China. However, Berlin may eventually adopt foreign trade regulations to block or downsize Chinese acquisitions of German companies in sectors of the economy considered of strategic importance. The government could also prohibit critical infrastructure operators from contracting Chinese vendors and using Chinese equipment, with upcoming measures to ban certain Chinese components in the country's 5G network offering an important indication of how far the government intends to go in pursuing this goal. Finally, Berlin may decide to interrupt or impose caps on investment guarantees (which the government normally offers to German companies in emerging markets to protect their investments from political risk) for German investment in China. As a result, German companies could face increasing pressure to reduce critical dependencies on China, diversify supply chains and export markets, and create contingency plans to decouple from China should a geopolitical crisis arise. German companies that fail to do so risk losing access to investment protection schemes and/or lowering their creditworthiness and company valuations on financial markets due to perceived high levels of geopolitical risk. Moreover, should Germany's de-risking efforts significantly escalate, Beijing may retaliate by more strictly regulating German firms operating in China or by limiting exports of critical raw materials to Germany.
A 2021 study from Germany's Kiel Institute for the World Economy estimates that an abrupt break in Germany-China trade relations would cost Germany about 1.4% of GDP (roughly 48.4 billion euros, or $54.21 billion) in real income. The study also estimates that this decoupling would cost the European Union 1% of GDP.
In a study published earlier in 2023, the Cologne Institute for Economic Research estimated that Germany's exports to China accounted for 2.7% of its total economic added value and 2.4% of employment.
A report in December 2022 from Denmark-based telecommunications consultancy Strand Consult showed that Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE, which the EU considers high-risk vendors, account for about 59% of Germany's 5G infrastructure. In 2021, the German government passed measures allowing it to ban or recall certain components from the country's telecommunications infrastructure in case security risks were identified (pursuant to the 2020 EU toolbox for 5G security) but has yet to apply them.
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Europe Avoids China’s Belt and Road Forum, Keeping a Distance From Xi and Putin
Russia’s president has confirmed his attendance at planned summit, deterring Western countries that Beijing wants to win over
By
Chun Han Wong
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in Singapore, in Berlin and
Drew Hinshaw
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in Madrid
July 28, 2023 5:01 am ET
After three years of Covid isolation, Chinese leader Xi Jinping is planning a blowout bash for his signature Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.
The R.S.V.P.s aren’t exactly rolling in.
European countries, in particular, are skipping the festivities, a reflection of souring relations between the continent and China. Beijing had hoped that Europe would plug into its Belt and Road network of global trade and transportation links, but European leaders are backing away, sharing Washington’s wariness about increasing their economic dependence on China.
The one prominent guest who has said he is attending—Russian President Vladimir Putin—has further driven away European leaders, many of whom have hardened their stance toward China because of Beijing’s support for Moscow since the start of the Ukraine war.
Beijing envisioned the Belt and Road Initiative to direct what some experts estimated to be $1 trillion toward Chinese-financed rail, roads, pipelines and ports that would link Asia with Europe, Africa and Latin America.
Just five years ago, China was quickly signing up new members across the developing world and making inroads among rich economies more closely aligned with Washington—including Italy, Greece and the Czech Republic—with goods arriving in European ports and railways financed by Belt and Road.
Now, many of those countries are distancing themselves from the project, as Europe seeks to reduce China’s economic influence in the region.
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz currently have no plans to attend this year’s Belt and Road Forum, according to senior government officials. Nor does Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy, the only Group of Seven country to sign up to the Belt and Road, said a person coordinating her schedule. Historically neutral Switzerland, which sent its president to the past two summits, is reviewing whether it will participate this year, a foreign-ministry spokeswoman said.
Greece, which joined the Belt and Road Initiative in 2018, has already told Beijing its prime minister won’t attend. The Czech Republic, which signed up to the initiative in 2015, doesn’t expect to send its president or senior officials, government spokespeople said. Xi made three-day state visits to each of those countries after they committed to Belt and Road cooperation with Beijing.
Beijing’s pursuit of Belt and Road is one of the signs that “the Chinese Communist Party’s clear goal is a systemic change of the international order with China at its center,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in March.
The Belt and Road Initiative, which Xi first pitched in 2013 as a broad campaign to boost global development and expand China’s international influence, is the world’s biggest infrastructure program—much larger than Washington’s postwar Marshall Plan—and the U.S. hasn’t been able to field an alternative thus far.
Heads of state posing for a photo at the last Belt and Road forum, in Beijing in 2019. PHOTO: VALERY MELNIKOV/SPUTNIK/KREMLIN/SHUTTERSTOCK
But Belt and Road spending has fallen short on early estimates and Beijing’s ambitions have been dampened by Covid-19, rising borrowing costs and Russia’s war in Ukraine. This year’s Belt and Road Forum—the first since the pandemic and the third since the inaugural edition in 2017—will test the appeal of Xi’s signature platform for economic diplomacy, with Chinese diplomats working to fill guest lists and demonstrate China’s global influence.
“In past years, European countries approached the [Belt and Road Initiative] with an open mind,” said Noah Barkin, who focuses on Europe and China at research firm Rhodium Group. Now, the narrative has shifted and the program is largely seen, Barkin says, as “a vehicle for spreading Chinese influence abroad.”
The lackluster response from Europe so far suggests a more challenging global landscape for Xi’s diplomatic ambitions. If European countries once flirted with joining Belt and Road, they are now competing with it.
In late October, European governments will invite business leaders, officials and heads of state from Africa, Latin America and Asia—but not China—to their own rival forum, promoting Global Gateway, the European Union’s $333 billion infrastructure-building program.
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Chinese officials, meanwhile, are working toward a mid-October time frame for the Beijing forum and have been courting the participation of foreign governments, according to people familiar with the matter.
Xi and Putin: A Friendship Forged Against the West
PHOTO: PAVEL BYRKIN/SPUTNIK/KREMLIN/PRESS POOL
State media has previously reported that Xi, during a state visit to Moscow in March, invited Putin to attend. This week, the Kremlin said Putin would participate.
Putin’s presence has made it all but impossible for China to secure commitments from governments that have condemned Russia’s Ukraine invasion and imposed sanctions on Moscow, people familiar with the matter say.
Low attendance would undercut Beijing’s efforts to project an image of growing global clout. The previous forum in 2019 featured senior leaders from 38 countries, whereas 30 national leaders appeared at the inaugural event in 2017—to which the Trump administration sent a midlevel delegation led by a White House adviser.
Spokespeople for China’s Foreign Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The Belt and Road program has faced criticism at home and abroad as projects stall, debtors struggle to repay loans and allegations of overspending and misallocation of resources crop up. Western officials have blamed the initiative for heaping onerous debt onto poorer countries—a notion that Beijing rejects. Some private businesses have also lost interest after failing to reap the benefits they hoped for, following an early buzz that prompted many entrepreneurs to find ways to associate themselves with the program.
“‘Belt and Road’ sloganeering is outdated,” said one China-focused business lobbyist in Singapore who works with companies from both countries, adding that many entrepreneurs have moved on to new buzzwords, such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP—a 15-member Asian trade pact of which China is a member.
The Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway is one of many infrastructure projects under China’s Belt and Road Initiative. PHOTO: REN WEIYUN/ZUMA PRESS
Beijing, for its part, has defended the Belt and Road as beneficial for global trade and development in partner countries, while promising to improve its implementation. At the 2019 forum, Xi pledged to introduce a “debt-sustainability framework” for Belt and Road projects and encourage compliance with international standards in infrastructure contracting. Chinese officials have also set stronger risk controls and become more willing to accept some losses and renegotiate debt.
Europe’s turn away from Belt and Road started before the pandemic, as the continent’s major powers re-evaluated their relationship with China. Since 2019, the EU’s official China policy has labeled Beijing a “systemic rival,” not just a commercial partner. The following year, the EU Chamber of Commerce in China said European companies were only getting “crumbs from the table” from Belt and Road, since most financing is routed through Chinese state-owned entities.
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Diplomatic spats also made closer trade links with China less palatable. In 2020, Chinese diplomats threatened to import fewer pianos from the Czech Republic, whose then-president was a staunch Belt and Road supporter, if a Czech senator flew to Taiwan, a self-governed island that Beijing claims as its territory. The incident sparked a wave of China skepticism that helped elect a new president who is one of Europe’s most outspoken China hawks.
The following year, China curbed imports from Lithuania by 80% after the Baltic country allowed Taiwan to open a local office under a name suggesting the island is an independent state. The EU sued China at the World Trade Organization and intensified efforts to reduce trade dependencies on China.
China’s ambivalent reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine further alienated many European officials, who began working more closely with the U.S. to curb Beijing’s global influence—including the Belt and Road Initiative. At a May summit in Hiroshima, the G-7 advanced democracies established a partnership for global infrastructure in which leaders pledged to raise $600 billion in investments for developing countries. The EU is committed to mobilizing private and public investments worth more than half of that.
Margherita Stancati in Rome contributed to this article.
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John Lennon:
"if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow"
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Odd turn of events, it's Chairman Xi who wants to revolutionize the world and it's Putin's picture he shouldn't be carrying.
These countries (rest of the world) are crazy to 'partner' with either of these sinister crime syndicates, and the US and free world should be offering a better alternative.
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from the American Spectator:
https://spectator.org/edward-luttwak-the-u-s-must-end-the-russia-ukraine-war/
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https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3231798/china-and-iran-pledge-cooperation-ahead-brics-summit-tehran-seeks-join-bloc?module=lead_hero_story&pgtype=homepage
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Meeting in Beijing. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met in Beijing with his Italian counterpart, Antonio Tajani. Wang praised the recent expansion of bilateral ties, while Tajani said Italy looks forward to working with Beijing to deepen cooperation on trade and investment, science and technology, environmental protection and tourism.
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My Encounters With a Suspected Spy
He invited me to join a Westminster panel on China. Later we met for coffee. What did he learn?
By Joseph C. Sternberg
Sept. 12, 2023 12:06 pm ET
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The Palace of Westminster in London, Sept. 11. PHOTO: TAYFUN SALCI/ZUMA PRESS
London
When the email from the alleged spy for China landed in my inbox, it took me a moment to realize I should pay attention to it.
It was a speaking invitation and arrived on the afternoon of Jan. 2. Would I participate in a panel discussion for a forthcoming book about the contest between democracies and autocracies? Such requests cross my transom from time to time, and I admit I don’t always respond quickly. I almost overlooked this one until a few details caught my eye.
The invitation came on behalf of the China Research Group, a caucus of members of the British Parliament with hawkish views on Beijing. I respect one of the CRG’s founders, Tom Tugendhat, who is now security minister. And I’d met the author of the book a few years before and was happy to help him launch his new work even though I suspected I wouldn’t agree with parts of it. I accepted the invitation.
The one thing that didn’t stand out at all about the email was the name of the CRG staffer who had sent it: Chris Cash. I’d never heard of him. Now everyone has, since the Times of London reported this weekend that he was arrested earlier this year on suspicion of spying for Beijing. A law firm on Monday issued a statement on behalf of the person arrested, without naming Mr. Cash, in which its client said he is “completely innocent” of the allegations.
If the allegations are true, this ranks as one of the most serious espionage incidents in the U.K. since the height of the Cold War. As a parliamentary staffer, Mr. Cash would have had access to nonpublic (although apparently not classified) information. His perch at the CRG offered him insight into the thinking of British lawmakers who are most suspicious of the Chinese Communist Party. And he had a window into the activities of other members of society, such as the human-rights activists who interact with those lawmakers—and of journalists.
The main surprise is that it took so long for allegations of this sort to emerge here. Before this weekend, Britain’s Parliament was one of the few major legislatures in the West not to have become embroiled in a Chinese spying scandal of this magnitude. The U.S. Congress has suffered such cases, as have the Canadian and Australian parliaments.
Beijing’s intentions globally appear to stretch beyond information gathering. Influence also is a goal, as the Chinese allegedly plant individuals who can shape attitudes and policies. It’s hard to believe such an effort would have worked in the U.K. given the stature and experience of CRG members.
No matter. If Chinese espionage has happened here, Beijing can claim a win even now if it has been exposed. The mere suggestion of such influence plants seeds of doubt about the integrity of Western democracy. Certainly this episode threatens to embarrass Mr. Tugendhat, one of Beijing’s most vocal British critics—albeit undeservedly and only by distant association through the CRG, since he appears not to have worked closely with Mr. Cash.
As for my bit part: I participated in the panel discussion on Feb. 7 in a meeting room in Westminster Palace, home to Parliament. The audience appeared to be a mix of parliamentary staffers and activists of various sorts. I assumed at least one attendee would be from the Chinese Embassy, there to monitor the event and perhaps intimidate some of the other audience members merely by his or her presence as is Beijing’s standard practice these days.
At the end of the event, the other panelists, Mr. Cash and I posed for a photograph, which the Times republished this weekend.
Mr. Cash and I subsequently met one-on-one in early March at a coffee shop. I don’t remember who first suggested the idea in person during the panel event, but he reached out first via email to schedule the follow-up. Our chat was intended to be off the record, so I won’t share what he said. But under the circumstances I feel at liberty to tell Journal readers about my half of the conversation:
My aim was to determine whether Mr. Cash might be a helpful source, but I concluded he wouldn’t be. He hadn’t told me anything interesting that I couldn’t have inferred from reading a newspaper. I didn’t bother trying to maintain the connection after that meeting, which is why until the Times published its article this weekend I didn’t realize he had become incommunicado following his reported arrest later in March.
What might Mr. Cash have learned from me? As a matter of course, in such meetings I don’t discuss other sources or my private conversations with colleagues on any topic. As I recall, I asked him mostly about Britain’s economic relationship with China. I also asked if he had any insight into Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s dilatory approach to the case of jailed Hong Kong journalist and British citizen Jimmy Lai. But my interest in these matters is well-known because my colleagues and I have published our views on them. The meeting may have been a dud all around.
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At that panel discussion, I argued that democracies defeat autocracies by being more like ourselves. That means more transparency, more tolerance for free debate, and also more care by each institution to carry out its role diligently within an open society. The new global wave of Chinese spying is so pernicious because it challenges our ability to do that.
Concerning legislatures, those bodies require trust to function on our behalf. In Britain there are already calls to tighten rules on the issuance of parliamentary passes to staffers. Perhaps there’s room for improvement, but such tweaks aren’t necessarily cost-free. They come at the risk of limiting the ability of lawmakers to draw on the expertise of many talented staffers, and such rules risk embedding a broader climate of distrust.
Meanwhile, should citizens be wary of lobbying lawmakers for fear that sensitive information (personal or commercial) could find its way into the wrong hands? This isn’t a trivial concern for human-rights activists, who play a vital role in our democracies by informing and persuading lawmakers about events in China. They already face substantial risks of harassment from the Chinese agents we too often allow to operate unrestrained on our shores, where they intimidate students on campuses, marchers at protests and more. Not even a congressman’s or member of Parliament’s office can be taken for granted as a safe zone.
Inevitably we’ll find there are no easy ways to protect ourselves. But understand that Beijing’s global espionage operations are about more than intelligence gathering. They are attempts to transform our democratic cultures from within, to make us less like ourselves. That may be the most dangerous threat of all.
Mr. Sternberg, a member of the Journal’s editorial board, writes the Political Economics column.
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https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-67142161
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Apple cancels John Stewart, citing planned segments about China and AI, among others. It’s difficult not to issue a sardonic grin when a culture warrior is given hoist by the petard he totes, but if does serve to illustrate just how deeply China has its claws sunk into sundry corners of the US. Indeed, while recovering from various surgeries I caught a lot of flicks that not only had Chinese heros inexplicably inserted into them, but likely were then re-edited to make the Chinese character(s) the star(s) of the show in other markets:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/10/report-apple-cancels-the-problem-with-jon-stewart-over-china-ai-topics/
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Thread nazi here :-D That would be Chinese Penetration of America.
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Thread nazi here :-D That would be Chinese Penetration of America.
Hey, I’ve been gone a while and am still wrapping my head around what topics are out there….. :-D
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No worries, thread nazi is here to help :-D
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since they are allowing these posts
whether they say so publicly or not.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/antisemitic-comments-increase-across-chinese-social-media/ar-AA1j2WE6?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=8e924f3652ad4c70a701aa33b501380c&ei=8
I am presuming for influence and oil from Muslim countries
Plus anything to stick a thumb in the eye of the US.
Ironic since they treat their own Muslims as garbage
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https://www.thefp.com/p/a-world-spinning-out-of-control-521
The implications of this act run deep on many levels.
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China supplies Iran who supply the Houthis that are interrupting Red Sea trade:
https://weapons.substack.com/p/china-the-red-sea-and-trade?r=1qo1e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&fbclid =IwAR1ebiIj1_iEBM9yQkMD6WWE2ljzllb7OU7YYjsvwgYituKtOItbuUCdrFM
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I was unaware that we subsidize China’s shipping rates for the cheap crap they sell consumers online. Indeed, the USPS has to raise its rates & run a deficit in part to cover this:
https://joannenova.com.au/2024/01/how-cheap-postage-from-china-is-another-un-bureaucratic-scam/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-cheap-postage-from-china-is-another-un-bureaucratic-scam
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Did not know this.
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Did not know this.
Explain's a lot of the "free shipping" found on eBay....
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/jan/23/with-assist-from-russia-chinas-plutonium-reactors-/
for purposes of climate control [just kidding]
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I was not aware of this series of related China v. Australia incidents:
Shh! Nobody mention why China launched that trade war on Australia…
China, Lion statue
By Jo Nova
That which must not be spoken
Every news outlet today is saying how good it is that “relations” with China have thawed, like it was just a bad patch of weather, and now the clouds have cleared they’ve allowed us to sell them wine again. But there is a kind of collective amnesia about why relations froze in the first place.
Just to recap, through incompetence or “otherwise” naughty-citizen China leaked a likely lab experiment, lied about it, and destroyed the evidence. They stopped it spreading at home but sent it on planes to infect the rest of the world. Then when Scott Morrison, Australian Prime Minister, dared ask for an investigation in April 2020, within a week China threatened boycotts, and followed up with severe anti-dumping duties on Australian barley. After which the CCP discovered “inconsistencies in labelling” on Australian beef imports, and added bans or tariffs on Australian wine, wheat, wool, sugar, copper, lobsters, timber and grapes. Then they told their importers not to bring in Australian coal, cotton or LNG either. The only industry they didn’t attack was iron ore, probably because they couldn’t get it anywhere else. In toto, the punishment destroyed about $20 billion dollars in trade, and everyone, even CNN, knew this was political retribution and a message to the world.
As Jeffrey Wilson, Foreign Policy, described it in November 2021
“… its massive onslaught against Australia was like nothing before. Whereas China usually sanctions minor products as a warning shot—Norwegian salmon, Taiwanese pineapples—Australia was the first country to be subjected to an economywide assault.”
But perhaps the communist party had nothing to hide?
Not to put a fine point on it, but on January 14th, 2020, China told the world they had “found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission “. A Chinese CDC expert said “If no new patients appear in the next week, it might be over.” They didn’t mention that things were already so bad in Wuhan in December 2019, that even doctors one thousand kilometers away in Taiwan suspected it was spreading human to human. Taiwan demanded answers from the WHO on December 31. The next day, the CCP destroyed all the virus samples, information about them, and related papers. But perhaps it was just an innocent bat-pangolin thing, yeah?
So after four years of pain in order to stand bravely against the bully, what concessions, exactly, did our current leadership win? There’s no investigation, no answers, no apology, no nothing and no reason to think it won’t happen again.
In fact to smooth the wheels, Australia dropped the WTO cases against China for their bad behaviour with barley and wine. But the negotiation geniuses didn’t insist that China drop its WTO case against us (which was instigated two days after the Australian cases). And so it comes to pass that this week China won the WTO steel case against us.
https://joannenova.com.au/2024/03/shh-nobody-mention-why-china-launched-that-trade-war-on-australia/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=shh-nobody-mention-why-china-launched-that-trade-war-on-australia