Friends,
After nearly two years of hoping that Beijing would exert pressure on Moscow, Ukrainians are exhausted with Beijing’s hypocrisy and appear willing to strike at the Sino-Russian sinews which provide Moscow with the material support it needs to carry on its industrialized war of aggression.
On November 29, Ukrainian operatives conducted two sequential attacks in Siberia on one of the rail lines that connects Russia to the PRC, nearly 6000 kilometers from Ukraine. It appears these strikes were meant to achieve two objectives: impose costs on Beijing’s material support to Moscow and bring public attention to the Sino-Russian partnership.
First, Ukrainian operatives blew up a freight train carrying diesel and aviation fuel inside the Severomuysky tunnel on the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM). At 15 kilometers in length, this is the longest tunnel in Russia and is a vulnerable chokepoint though a vast expanse of wilderness in Siberia. When the Russians diverted the next train around the tunnel to conduct repairs, the Ukrainians struck again at the lone trestle bridge (known as Devil’s Bridge) that serves as a bypass to the tunnel.
However, according to Russian media, repairs were made within days and trains were running through the tunnel again within a week.
While some media outlets suggest that these attacks could have permanently cut the rail connections between the PRC and Russia, looking at the map, that doesn’t appear to be the case. The Soviets built the BAM line in the 1970s as an alternative to the Trans-Siberian Railway which they saw as too vulnerable to being cut by the PRC (these were the days of Sino-Soviet border skirmishes with more than 40 Soviet Divisions arrayed across Siberia).
Just west of Lake Baikal at the town of Tayshet, Russia’s rail network splits in two. The Trans-Siberian Railway continues south of Lake Baikal and hugs the Mongolian-Russian and Sino-Russian borders all the way to Vladivostok. Along this stretch there are several branches connecting with rail lines in the PRC. The northern branch is the BAM which runs north of Lake Baikal and continues east to the Pacific Ocean ending at Sovetskaya Gavan. See the map below, Red is the Trans-Siberian Railway and Green is the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM).
Permanently shutting down the BAM line at the Severomuysky Tunnel would likely impose considerable costs on Russia, but it would not cut the supply lines between Russia and the PRC. The only way to do that would be to strike at the junction of the BAM and the Trans-Siberian Railway in Tayshet (or in Omsk, though Omsk is a city of more than 1 million, while Tayshet is truly remote with a population less than 30,000). But given the geography and the kinds of sabotage attacks Ukraine can mount, it’s not clear that Ukraine could impose long-term disruptions on the transportation infrastructure in Tayshet.
[FUN FACT: Russian Federal Highway R255, which also runs through Tayshet, is the only highway to connect the western and eastern halves of the Russian Federation. Tayshet is truly a fulcrum for the Russian Federation… I’m not sure if its residents fully appreciate that.]
If we back out from the particulars of Siberian geography and the vulnerabilities of the Russian military-industrial complex, I think the timing of this attack is even more important.
In early November, after months of speculation, the date of the first EU-China Summit in four years began to leak out. It would take place in Beijing on December 7-8 with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council chief Charles Michel representing the European side.
The real target of the Ukrainian attack on November 29th was not a tunnel in Siberia, it was this meeting nearly 2000 kilometers away in Beijing, that would take place a week later.
Charles Michel, Xi Jinping, and Ursula von der Leyen at the 24th EU-China Summit on December 7, 2023 in Beijing.
As von der Leyen and Michel walked into their meeting with Xi, this attack deep within Russia and less than 500 kilometers from the Chinese border, hung in the air even if no one mentioned it. It served as a reminder to all those who were present that European (and American) threats of secondary sanctions had done almost nothing to deter Beijing from providing Moscow with the material support Putin needed to continue his war of aggression against Ukraine.
Politico reported that Michel warned Xi that the PRC must immediately deal with a “list of companies” involved in circumventing European sanctions on Russia or risk European sanctions on those companies. I suspect that Xi wasn’t too impressed by this threat.
Arguably, it would have been far more effective had the EU imposed those sanctions BEFORE the Summit (as the UK did earlier in the week), than to go into the Summit with what Xi likely regards as an empty threat. From Beijing’s perspective, the likelihood that European member states will come to consensus on serious sanctions against PRC entities seems remote. It is in this context that we should view the Ukrainian decision to target the physical transportation lines between Beijing and Moscow.
It appears that Kyiv has realized that in this war of attrition the only way to defeat Moscow is to cut Russia off from the support it receives from Beijing. Early in the conflict, Kyiv, like the Washington and the capitals of Europe, believed that Xi could be persuaded to break with Putin or at the very least be deterred from providing “lethal aid” to Russia.
Nearly two years in and that break has not happened and simply deterring “lethal aid” is insufficient.
The Russian military-industrial complex it fully functional and only needs the “nonlethal” inputs of components and raw materials that the PRC is providing by the trainload. The supply of consumer goods from the PRC also fortifies Putin from popular backlash as the Russian economy focuses almost entirely on the war effort. Just as it was in the Second World War, American aid to the Soviet Union with trucks, tractors, food, boots, blankets, and other nonlethal equipment allowed the Soviet war machine to crank out Mosin-Nagants, M-30 122mm howitzers, T-34 tanks, and IL-2 Shturmovik fighters in mind-numbing numbers.
The Russo-Ukrainian War is now an industrial war, and the world’s factory is providing the Russian Federation with all the industrial support it needs to wage that war.
Unfortunately, as Greg Ip pointed out this week in his Wall Street Journal column (The U.S. Can Afford a Bigger Military. We Just Can’t Build It., December 6, 2023… #91 below) and Noah Smith in his substack two weeks ago (People are realizing that the Arsenal of Democracy is gone, November 30, 2023), the United States, Europe, and Japan are not well positioned for this return of industrialized warfare.
Three decades of outsourcing industrial activity to one’s adversary, who you had *hoped* would become a friend, and dismantling defense production to save relatively small amounts of money, imposes some severe costs when forced to wake-up from a vacation from history.
***
On a related note, I recommend listening to Jordan Schneider’s interview with RAND CEO, Jason Matheny, on China Talk, RAND CEO Jason Matheny Gives a Masterclass on Risk and Organizational Design (November 8, 2023) and read Noah Smith’s Substack post Stop saying "there is no decoupling". There is! (December 4, 2023)
Thanks for reading!
Matt
MUST READ
1. Chinese Coast Guard Blasts Philippine Boats with Water Cannons
Niharika Mandhana, Wall Street Journal, December 9, 2023
Chinese coast-guard ships blasted water cannons at Philippine boats at least eight times near a contested atoll in the South China Sea, damaging equipment aboard one of them, as escalating tensions between the countries lead to more close encounters in the waters.
The incident occurred Saturday near Scarborough Shoal, which China seized from the Philippines in 2012. As three vessels from the Philippine government’s fisheries agency drew close—between 1.4 and 1.9 nautical miles from Scarborough Shoal—Chinese coast-guard ships sprayed water cannons at them, the Philippines said.
Boats from China’s maritime militia—which work in tandem with the Chinese coast guard to exert control in the South China Sea—also used what the Philippines believes is a long-range acoustic device, blasting sounds that temporarily incapacitated some Filipino crew, it said. Chinese forces also deployed inflatable boats to drive away Filipino fishermen in the area and erected a buoy barrier to block the entrance to Scarborough Shoal, the Philippines said.
2. China’s Xi goes full Stalin with purge
Politico, December 6, 2023
Something is rotten in the imperial court of Chairman Xi Jinping.
While the world is distracted by war in the Middle East and Ukraine, a Stalin-like purge is sweeping through China’s ultra-secretive political system, with profound implications for the global economy and even the prospects for peace in the region.
The signals emanating from Beijing are unmistakable, even as China’s security services have ramped up repression to totalitarian levels, making it almost impossible to know what is really happening inside the country.
The unexplained disappearance and removal of China’s foreign and defense ministers — both Xi loyalists who were handpicked and elevated mere months before they went missing earlier this year — are just two examples.
Other high-profile victims include the generals in charge of China’s nuclear weapons program and some of the most senior officials overseeing the Chinese financial sector. Several of these former Xi acolytes have apparently died in custody.
Another ominous sign is the untimely death of Li Keqiang, China’s recently retired prime minister — No. 2 in the Communist hierarchy — who supposedly died of a heart attack in a swimming pool in Shanghai in late October, despite enjoying some of the world’s best medical care. Following his death, Xi ordered public mourning for his former rival be heavily curtailed.
In the minds of many in China, “heart attack in a swimming pool” has the same connotation that “falling out of a window” does for Russian apparatchiks who anger or offend Vladimir Putin.
Since his reign began in 2012, Xi Jinping’s endless purges have removed millions of officials — from top-ranked Communist Party “tigers” down to lowly bureaucratic “flies,” to use Xi’s evocative terminology.
What’s different today is that the officials being neutralized are not members of hostile political factions but loyalists from the inner ring of Xi’s own clique, leading to serious questions over the regime’s stability.
With such a febrile atmosphere in the celestial capital of Beijing, there are fears that an isolated and paranoid Chairman Xi could miscalculate, provoke armed conflict with one of its weaker neighbors or even launch a full-scale invasion of democratic Taiwan in order to distract from his domestic troubles.
Enemies everywhere
The political earthquakes rippling out from the old imperial leadership compound of Zhongnanhai are exacerbating the already dire state of the Chinese economy.
“We see a China domestically that is challenged; an aging society, demography, a severe housing crisis, slowing down growth, unexpected unemployment because the young generation leaving university does not find adequate jobs in the private sector anymore,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who heads to Beijing this week with her European Council counterpart Charles Michel for the first face-to-face EU-China meeting in nearly five years, told POLITICO last week. “So quite some challenges domestically.”
Chinese financiers and businesspeople (quietly) complain they are required to spend countless hours studying “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” — a painfully turgid governing mantra that boils down to ideology-free totalitarian rule and the return of a personality cult to China.
In recent weeks, the country’s leading investment bank banned negative macroeconomic or market commentary, as well as any behavior that could suggest its bankers lead “hedonistic lifestyles.”
Not long after he ascended to chairmanship of the Communist Party in 2012, Xi began purging his real and perceived enemies in an “anti-corruption” campaign that never really ended.
COMMENT – The most striking line in this piece to me was in reference to the death of Li Keqiang: “In the minds of many in China, “heart attack in a swimming pool” has the same connotation that “falling out of a window” does for Russian apparatchiks who anger or offend Vladimir Putin.”
I’m not sure its “full Stalin purge” (the Great Terror of 1937 resulted in approximately a million executions by Stalin’s NKVD), but it likely has Chinese Communist Party members scared of what might happen to them and their families.
As I’ve remarked before… this is a spectacular opportunity for foreign intelligence services to recruit inside the Chinese Communist Party and I hope it is being exploited to the fullest.
3. Second SCMP reporter dropped out of contact in China last year, sources say
Erin Hale, Aljazeera, December 4, 2023
Minnie Chan, a Hong Kong reporter for the South China Morning Post has been out of contact since her trip to Beijing over a month ago, raising concerns about her potential detention by Chinese authorities.
The SCMP, owned by Alibaba, stated she is on personal leave in Beijing for a private matter, but associates and media freedom groups seek assurances of her safety. Another SCMP reporter experienced a similar unexplained absence in 2022.
COMMENT – Journalists around the world should be demanding more from the South China Morning Post. The once proud and independent newspaper in Hong Kong has become a tool of Beijing’s repression and it appears terrified to speak out on behalf of its own journalists.
4. A $14 Billion Rout Makes HKEX World’s Worst-Performing Bourse
John Cheng, Bloomberg, December 6, 2023
Hong Kong is set to close the year as the world’s worst-performing stock market and the city’s exchange operator is emerging as the poster child of this slump.
Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd. has plunged 24% this year, the most on a Bloomberg Intelligence gauge of 24 listed global security and commodity bourses. The stock rout has wiped out $13 billion of its market value, putting it behind that of CME Group Inc. and London Stock Exchange Group Plc.
COMMENT – Ooch!
Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party have ruined Hong Kong.
5. Middle East funds prop up Hong Kong market as others retreat
Echo Wong, Nikkei Asia, November 29, 2023
Saudi-focused ETF lists in territory as China's ties with Arab economies grow.
Middle East sovereign wealth funds are becoming increasingly active in Hong Kong's stock market after it tumbled to its lowest level in two decades amid growing investor concerns about the deteriorating relationship between the West and China.
Sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Qatar have participated as seed investors in the listings of Chinese companies this year. On Wednesday, a new $1 billion exchange-traded fund (ETF) tracking Saudi equities listed in Hong Kong, with Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) as anchor investor.
COMMENT – This seems like a really bad idea by Middle East sovereign wealth funds… unless of course they are comfortable with losing money.
This calls for adapting an old joke to fit the situation today:
What’s the best way to become a millionaire?
Take a billion dollars and invest in the Hong Kong Stock Market.
6. China’s Xi Seen Delaying Key Economic Meeting, Defying Norms
Bloomberg, December 1, 2023
President Xi Jinping appears set to postpone a party meeting held every five years to chart his nation’s long-term reform agenda, the latest example of the Chinese leader disregarding decades-old norms.
The ruling Communist Party’s Politburo skipped setting a date for the third plenum at its meeting this week, according to the official read out. That leaves little time for the conclave that normally focuses on economic issues to assemble this year.
COMMENT – This should further spook investors and business leaders who are exposed to the PRC.
Shreyashi Sanyal, CNBC, December 7, 2023
Moody’s Investors Service cut its outlook for eight Chinese banks to negative from stable. This comes a day after it downgrades China’s credit ratings.
The ratings agency also lowered Hong Kong’s outlook from stable to negative, citing its linkages with mainland China.
Moody’s also slashed its outlook for 22 Chinese local government financing vehicles.
8. Moody’s advised staff to work from home ahead of China outlook cut
Sun Yu, Financial Times, December 7, 2023
US rating agency employees in Beijing and Shanghai believe concern over possible backlash prompted unusual move.
Moody’s Investors Service advised staff in China to work from home ahead of its cut to the outlook for the country’s sovereign credit rating, a suggestion staff believed was prompted by concern over Beijing’s possible reaction, according to two employees familiar with the situation.
The move by the US rating agency highlights the unease of many foreign companies doing business in the world’s second-largest economy, where some have suffered police raids, exit bans for staff and arrests amid tensions between China and the US and its allies.
Some Moody’s department heads in the country told associates on Friday that non-administrative staff in Beijing and Shanghai should not go into the office this week, they said.
“They didn’t give us the reason . . . but everyone knows why,” said one China-based Moody’s employee, referring to the request to work from home. “We are afraid of government inspections.”
The staff member said Moody’s also advised analysts in Hong Kong to temporarily avoid travel to the Chinese mainland ahead of the cut. The agency on Tuesday lowered the outlook for China’s A1 long-term local and foreign-currency issuer rating to negative from stable.
The staff member said working from home might prevent Chinese authorities from questioning many employees in one place if they decided to raid the agency but added that such a raid was still considered to be unlikely.
A Moody’s spokesperson said: “Our commitment to maintaining the confidentiality and integrity of the ratings process is paramount and therefore, we cannot comment on internal discussions, if any, related to specific credit ratings or issuers.”
Chinese authorities have raided the offices of several US-based consultancies this year and detained local employees of due diligence group Mintz over what Beijing said were national security concerns.
“We’ve seen crackdowns on due diligence companies and other firms, but those have been motivated by issues beyond just negative commentary,” said Michael Hirson, a China analyst at 22V Research in New York.
COMMENT – This is going to get really ugly.
9. Sellafield nuclear site hacked by groups linked to Russia and China
Anna Isaac and Alex Lawson, The Guardian, December 4, 2023
The UK’s most hazardous nuclear site, Sellafield, has been hacked into by cyber groups closely linked to Russia and China, the Guardian can reveal.
The astonishing disclosure and its potential effects have been consistently covered up by senior staff at the vast nuclear waste and decommissioning site, the investigation has found.
The Guardian has discovered that the authorities do not know exactly when the IT systems were first compromised. But sources said breaches were first detected as far back as 2015, when experts realised sleeper malware – software that can lurk and be used to spy or attack systems – had been embedded in Sellafield’s computer networks.
It is still not known if the malware has been eradicated. It may mean some of Sellafield’s most sensitive activities, such as moving radioactive waste, monitoring for leaks of dangerous material and checking for fires, have been compromised.
Sources suggest it is likely foreign hackers have accessed the highest echelons of confidential material at the site, which sprawls across 6 sq km (2 sq miles) on the Cumbrian coast and is one of the most hazardous in the world.
COMMENT – The day after the story went public, the UK’s new Foreign Minister, David Cameron, was meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, and stressing his desire for a “constructive relationship” with the PRC.
I guess Cameron’s definition of “constructive” is different than mine.
At least London wasn’t deterred from sanctioning several Chinese entities this week for circumventing Russian sanctions.
Authoritarianism
10. AUDIO – The Rachman Review: Biden and Xi mend ties
Gideon Rachman, Evan Medeiros, and Jude Blanchette, The Rachman Review, December 7, 2023
A recent visit to the US by China’s president Xi Jinping has raised hopes of a bilateral rapprochement. But how stable is this more positive relationship and can a conflict over Taiwan be averted? Gideon discusses these questions with Washington-based China experts Evan Medeiros and Jude Blanchette.
COMMENT – Insightful interview… though the title is a bit misleading as both Evan and Jude don’t see that ties have been mended.
11. The party knows best: Aligning economic actors with China's strategic goals
Max J. Zenglein and Jacob Gunter, Mercator Institute for China Studies, October 12, 2023
12. Chinese Hospitals Are Housing Another Deadly Outbreak
Annie Sparrow, Foreign Policy, November 28, 2023
Hospitals in Beijing and other Chinese cities are overwhelmed with children suffering severe pneumonia, but the government denies a new pathogen, attributing it to winter illnesses exacerbated by lifted COVID-19 restrictions.
Concerns arise about potential cover-ups and the cultivation of antibiotic-resistant strains of Mycoplasma pneumoniae. Experts fear a dual infection of COVID-19 and pneumonia, with potential dangers due to antibiotic resistance.
COMMENT – We should keep an eye on this.
13. New Leaders in “National” Security after China’s 20th Party Congress
Sheena Chestnut Greitens, China Leadership Monitor, December 1, 2023
14. China's Xi tells coast guard to enforce maritime law
Reuters, December 1, 2023
15. Xi Jinping Is Asserting Tighter Control of Finance in China
Keith Bradsher and Joy Dong, New York Times, December 5, 2023
16. China-Russia ties have trended steadily upwards since end of Cold War: study
Cyril Ip, South China Morning Post, December 1, 2023
17. Assessing the Changing Sino–Russian Relationship: A Longitudinal Analysis of Bilateral Cooperation in the Post-Cold War Period
Maria Papageorgiou and Alena Vysotskaya Guedes Vieira, Taylor & Francis Online, November 21, 2023
18. ‘Everything indicates’ Chinese ship damaged Baltic pipeline on purpose, Finland says
Claudia Chiappa and Pierre Emmanuel Ngendakumana, Politico, December 1, 2023
U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, November 30, 2023
Below is a list of key actions and statements summarizing China’s official position on Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022. Items highlighted include China’s official government statements, press conferences, messages to the international community, media publications, and where available, leaked internal Chinese Communist Party (CCP) guidance for media and propaganda outlets.
COMMENT – Great resource from the team at USCC.
20. Ukraine blows up 2 railway connections between Russia and China
Veronika Melkozerova, Politico, December 1, 2023
Ukraine’s security service blew up railway connections linking Russia to China, in a clandestine strike carried out deep into enemy territory, with pro-Kremlin media reporting that investigators have opened a criminal case into a “terrorist attack.”
The SBU set off several explosions inside the Severomuysky tunnel of the Baikal-Amur highway in Buryatia, located some 6,000 kilometers east of Ukraine, a senior Ukrainian official with direct knowledge of the operation told POLITICO.
“This is the only serious railway connection between the Russian Federation and China. And currently, this route, which Russia uses, including for military supplies, is paralyzed,” the official said.
COMMENT – That last quote from the Ukrainian official isn’t accurate… the Severomuysky tunnel on the BAM isn’t the ONLY serious railway connection between the two countries.
21. Imposing $7.9 Million in Total Fines, PCAOB Sanctions Three China-Based Firms and Four Individuals in Historic Settlements
PCAOB, November 30, 2023
22. PwC fined $7mn over exam cheating by China and Hong Kong staff
Stephen Foley, Financial Times, November 30, 2023
23. G42’s Ties to China Run Deep
Katrina Northrop, The Wire China, December 3, 2023
More details on the Emirati technology firm at the nexus of China and the U.S.’s technological and geopolitical rivalry.
One month before Sam Altman was pushed out of OpenAI by the company’s board, the superstar chief executive traveled to Dubai to broker an unusual partnership. On October 18, OpenAI announced it would allow G42, an Emirati technology firm with close ties to the country’s leadership, to deploy the U.S. company’s artificial intelligence technology in the United Arab Emirates and the broader Middle East region.
“At the core of our mission lies the pursuit of AI as a transformative force for good, fueling innovation and progress,” said Peng Xiao, G42’s chief executive officer. “Our partnership with OpenAI transcends technological synergy; it’s a convergence of value and vision.”
A closer look at G42 and Xiao calls into question that benevolent mission. On Monday, The New York Times published an article about U.S. intelligence concerns that G42 may be seeking to act as a conduit for China to obtain sensitive technology. An examination by The Wire China of corporate records and company press releases reveals further, previously unreported details about G42, which shed light on its entanglement with a range of high tech industries in the world’s second-largest economy.
These ties have made G42 emblematic of the new role the Emirates is playing in U.S.-China geopolitical and technological competition. While the UAE is “trying to position themselves at the center of a changing economic arrangement,” says Matthew Pines, a director at SentinelOne, a cyber security firm, “China has used the Emirates as a main jumping off point for influence in their region. G42 may be a loophole for China to get access to this technology. It essentially can act as a middle man.”
That role could cause concern for U.S. partners of G42 such as OpenAI and Microsoft, which brokered a deal with G42 in April to “explore acceleration of UAE’s digital transformation.”
“Any sort of deal or arrangement or partnership that is providing capabilities, resources or data to G42 deserves scrutiny,” says Bill Marczak, a senior research fellow at Citizen Lab, a technology watchdog group based at the University of Toronto that has extensively studied G42. “Is that capability being used for dual purposes, both for the company and for intelligence purposes?”
COMMENT – As usual great reporting by Katrina Northrop and the whole team at The Wire China… G42 is a really problematic company working in a jurisdiction that should raise many, many flags.
24. Inside U.S. Efforts to Untangle an A.I. Giant’s Ties to China
Mark Mazzetti and Edward Wong, New York Times, November 27, 2023
American spy agencies have warned about the Emirati firm G42 and its work with large Chinese companies that U.S. officials consider security threats.
When the secretive national security adviser of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, visited the White House in June, his American counterpart, Jake Sullivan, raised a delicate issue: G42, an artificial intelligence firm controlled by the sheikh that American officials believe is hiding the extent of its work with China.
In public, the company has announced its staggering growth with a steady cadence of news releases. They have included agreements with European pharmaceutical giants like AstraZeneca and a $100 million deal with a Silicon Valley firm to build what the companies boast will be the “world’s largest supercomputer.” Last month, G42 announced a partnership with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT.
But in classified American intelligence channels, there have been more concerning reports about the company. The C.I.A. and other American spy agencies have issued warnings about G42’s work with large Chinese companies that U.S. officials consider security threats, including Huawei, the telecommunications giant that is under U.S. sanctions.
U.S. officials fear G42 could be a conduit by which advanced American technology is siphoned to Chinese companies or the government. The intelligence reports have also warned that G42’s dealings with Chinese firms could be a pipeline to get the genetic data of millions of Americans and others into the hands of the Chinese government, according to two officials familiar with the reports.
COMMENT – I highlighted this story last week, but it bears bookmarking.
25. UAE’s top AI group vows to phase out Chinese hardware to appease US
Michael Peel and Simeon Kerr, Financial Times, December 7, 2023
Abu Dhabi-backed G42 says it ‘cannot work with both sides’ and retain access to American-made AI chips.
A leading Gulf artificial intelligence company has said it is cutting ties with Chinese hardware suppliers in favour of US counterparts, in a sign of the growing geopolitical struggle over the new technology.
G42 of the United Arab Emirates is making the move to ensure its access to US-made chips by allaying concerns among its American partners, which include Microsoft and OpenAI, chief executive Peng Xiao said.
“For better or worse, as a commercial company, we are in a position where we have to make a choice,” Xiao told the Financial Times. “We cannot work with both sides. We can’t.”
G42’s ventures include the launch of an Arabic large language model. Its investors include Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, and the US private equity group Silver Lake.
Xiao was speaking just before reports last month that claimed to shed new light on G42’s deep links to China. According to The New York Times, US officials are worried by the Emirati company’s relationship with groups including telecoms giant Huawei.
The report suggested the US also raised concerns that G42 could provide a route for US AI technology and Americans’ genetic data to reach the Chinese government and companies.
Xiao said G42 was phasing out hardware from Huawei, which had provided servers and data centre networking gear. He added that G42 had decided to pull back from its China relationships to appease its US corporate partners and to ensure it complied with Washington’s rules on exports of advanced chips.
COMMENT – Let’s see if G42 follows through on this, if so, that would be great.
Environmental Harms
26. US moves to choke China’s role in electric vehicle supply chain
Amanda Chu, Financial Times, December 1, 2023
27. Why China’s coal mines are under climate scrutiny for belching methane
Christian Shepherd, Washington Post, December 1, 2023
28. A quicker trip to Seoul – and potential curb on Chinese illegal fishing
Lee Jeong-ho, Radio Free Asia, November 22, 2023
29. From Bait to Plate – Tracking the Chinese Fishing Ships Linked to Rights and Labour Abuses at Sea
Ian Urbina, Pulitzer Center, November 20, 2023
30. How Uyghur Forced Labor Makes Seafood That Ends Up in School Lunches
Ian Urbina, Politico, November 20, 2023
31. Statement from the Department of the Interior on a Pelly Certification
U.S. Department of the Interior, September 8, 2023
Under the Pelly Amendment to the Fishermen’s Protective Act of 1967, when the Secretary of the Interior finds that “nationals of a foreign country . . . are engaging in trade or taking which diminishes the effectiveness of any international program for endangered or threatened species,” such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the Secretary must certify that fact to the President.
Today, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland notified the [Senate and House of Representatives] that she has issued a finding that nationals of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are diminishing the effectiveness of CITES by engaging in trade or taking of pangolin species, pursuant to the Pelly Amendment. This finding is based on the Department’s review of the pangolin trade and the role of the PRC in continuing a demand and trade for these imperiled species.
The United States has consistently advocated for the protection of all eight CITES-listed species of pangolins, considered the world’s most heavily trafficked mammal.
In coordination with the Department of State, the Department endeavors to continue diplomatic engagement with the PRC to further pangolin protection.
Within 60 days of the Secretary’s certification, the President will notify Congress of any action taken pursuant to certification to help encourage conservation actions to prevent the extinction of pangolins.
COMMENT – Next is the White House’s message to Congress 60 days later.
White House, November 3, 2023
On August 24, 2023, the Secretary of the Interior certified under section 8 of the Fishermen’s Protective Act of 1967, as amended (the “Pelly Amendment”) (22 U.S.C. 1978), that nationals of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are engaging in trade or taking of eight species of pangolin that diminishes the effectiveness of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). This letter constitutes my notification to the Congress consistent with subsection (b) of the Pelly Amendment.
Pangolins, the world’s only scaly mammal, are captured and trafficked at a higher rate annually than rhinoceroses, elephants, and tigers combined. Consumer demand for pangolin scales for traditional medicinal practices has pushed all eight pangolin species, originating from across Africa and Asia, toward extinction. Effective January 2, 2017, all species of pangolin were included in CITES Appendix I, which prohibits international trade for primarily commercial purposes. Despite this prohibition, the PRC remains the largest destination country for pangolin scales.
The PRC has taken some steps to curtail pangolin trafficking at its international ports and has uplisted pangolins under its Wildlife Protection Law. Yet the PRC maintains a system that allows for the legal commercial trade of pangolin scales for medicinal use from its national stockpiles, thereby indirectly providing commercial avenues for selling illegal pangolin specimens through its domestic pangolin market. Provincial governments within the PRC are allowed to issue permits to designated pharmaceutical companies and other entities to acquire pangolin specimens from the PRC’s national stockpiles for medicinal use.
According to the United Nations, pangolin seizures have increased tenfold since 2014; moreover, based on data collected between 2007 and 2018, 71 percent of seizures were destined for the PRC. The size of individual seizures has also increased; for example, in 2019 Malaysian authorities reported seizing a record-setting 30 tons of pangolin products. My Administration therefore remains concerned that, despite assurances from the PRC regarding its anti-trafficking efforts, demand for pangolin scales appears to be growing. The PRC must do more to close domestic markets for pangolins and pangolin specimens that provide cover for the illegal market. Without these actions, it is likely that pangolin populations will continue to decline, bringing the species closer to extinction.
Since the Secretary of the Interior’s certification on August 24, 2023, executive departments and agencies have outlined conservation and anti-trafficking conditions that must be met by the PRC to ameliorate United States concerns that the PRC is undermining pangolin conservation under CITES. Necessary actions by the PRC that would demonstrate its commitment to pangolin conservation and compliance with CITES directives include completely closing its domestic market for pangolins and pangolin parts, transparent accounting of domestic stockpiles, and fully removing pangolins and pangolin parts from the national list of approved medicines. The PRC has made some progress towards its international commitments, but given the complexity of the PRC’s domestic pangolin market and its overlapping jurisdictions, more time is needed to ensure that the appropriate agencies from the PRC are implementing the necessary steps to protect pangolin species from possible extinction.
That is why I have directed the Department of State and the Department of the Interior to continue their ongoing efforts and to report back to me on the outcome of the ongoing negotiations at the CITES Standing Committee meeting taking place in Geneva from November 6-10, 2023. If significant commitments by the PRC to implement CITES-directed measures to protect pangolin species have not been made by December 31, 2023, I plan to direct certain prohibitions on the importation of, and impose trade measures on, certain products from the PRC.
The United States will take the steps necessary to end illegal trade in order to save pangolins from extinction, with the goal of demonstrating progress by the end of this year.
COMMENT – This statement by President Biden would be more powerful if it were more straight-forward: The PRC Government refuses to fulfill its commitments under an International Convention to safeguard wildlife from extinction.
It is essentially the only country in the world responsible for the tenfold increase in the illegal trade in pangolins and is driving the species to extinction.
This is the same Government that prides itself on being able to surveil and control the actions and behaviors of its citizens in any realm that threatens the Party’s rule, but then claims it lacks the bureaucratic wherewithal to enforce international treaties like this one. The Administration should be calling out this hypocrisy much more loudly.
Foreign Interference and Coercion
33. China lures hundreds of Taiwan politicians with cheap trips before election
Yimou Lee, Reuters, December 1, 2023
34. Coercion Cul-de-Sac: Upcoming Taiwan Elections and Beijing’s Broken Cross-Strait Relations Approach
Jude Blanchette, China Leadership Monitor, December 1, 2023
35. Taiwan presidential election: opposition in chaos as China looms in background
Helen Davidson, The Guardian, December 6, 2023
36. "Pose As Lawyers, Activists": How Chinese Accounts Spread Fake News in India
Abhimanyu Kulkarni, NDTV, December 5, 2023
The accounts, pretending to be Indians, were actively involved in spreading misleading information on Indian politics and other issues of national security.
A recent report by Meta has highlighted the growing menace of fake Facebook accounts originating from China spreading fake news about India. The report sheds light on the sophisticated strategies employed by these accounts to manipulate public opinion and influence discourse. Meta, in its quarterly threat report, revealed that it dismantled a large network of fake accounts originating from China earlier this year.
The accounts, pretending to be Indians, were actively involved in spreading misleading information on Indian politics and other issues of national security.
"This network operated fictitious personas on Facebook posing as journalists, lawyers and human-rights activists. The network posted mainly in English, and to a lesser extent in Hindi and Chinese, about regional news, culture, sports and travel in Tibet and Arunachal Pradesh. Notably, the Tibet-focused accounts posed as pro-independence activists who also accused exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama and his followers of corruption and pedophilia," the report said.
37. Watching China in Europe - December 2023
Noah Barkin, GMF, December 4, 2023
38. French documentary reveals TikTok's attempts to influence Taiwan elections
Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, December 5, 2023
39. China’s Xi Jinping meets EU leaders for high stakes talks
Joe Leahy, Henry Foy, Andy Bounds, and Andy Lin, Financial Times, December 7, 2023
40. 4,789 Facebook Accounts in China Impersonated Americans, Meta Says
Steven Lee Myers, New York Times, November 30, 2023
41. The Untold Story of a Massive Hack at HHS in Covid’s Early Days
Jordan Robertson and Riley Griffin, Bloomberg, December 6, 2023
42. Corporations Are Juicy Targets for Foreign Disinformation
Elisabeth Braw, Foreign Policy, December 5, 2023
Human Rights and Religious Persecution
43. He blew the whistle on Amazon. He’s still paying the price
Yuan Yang, Financial Times, December 7, 2023
Four years after Tang Mingfang called out the injustices he witnessed at a Foxconn factory in China, nothing has changed — except for him.
Early each summer, the bus began to fill with teenagers. Tang Mingfang, a 40-year-old office manager, watched as his shuttle from the workers’ dormitories to Foxconn Hengyang, an Amazon supplier factory in southern China, grew more crowded with kids brought in to assemble Kindle ebooks and Echo speakers for Christmas. By the peak of the production cycle, there were so many that Tang was unable to squeeze on to the bus. Sent by their vocational schools, the students arrived in their hundreds, as part of an arrangement with Foxconn, the Taiwanese manufacturing giant that operates the plant.
An exclusive assembler of many Apple and Amazon products, Foxconn is China’s biggest private employer, with more than 700,000 workers. But during Chinese factories’ busiest periods, it’s common to see students from age 16 being bussed in to meet the higher demand for products. Once they reached the Hengyang factory, their task was to put together electronic devices often for up to 10 hours per day. Not that the students had much choice. If they said no, their teachers could refuse to let them graduate.
Tang knew it was illegal for students to work overtime or nights. It also seemed unfair. While his generation of graduates had grown up expecting formal contracts for skilled work, these young students were getting a raw deal. Subjected to the intense discipline of the assembly line, their work was limited to mindlessly repeating the same minuscule movements every few seconds. And he disliked the harsh way the children were treated by the teachers who were responsible for them at the factory. A short, serious figure with youthfully round cheeks, Tang uses a single phrase to describe himself: “well behaved”. So, at first, he kept his reservations about what was going on private.
One day he heard from colleagues about a vocational schoolteacher berating a crying student at the plant. Assembly-line managers didn’t discipline the students directly, instead complaining to the teachers. This instructor had been yelling and pulling the boy by the ear. Tang thought of his own young son, about to start primary school. What if his teachers treated him like that? I wouldn’t accept it. I couldn’t accept it, Tang thought. In the spring of 2019, assuming he understood the possible consequences, he decided to speak out.
COMMENT – For reporting Foxconn for violations of Chinese labor laws, Tang was sentenced to two years in prison.
44. Who’s Afraid of Chizuko Ueno? The Party’s Ongoing Counteroffensive against Feminism in the Xi Era
Patricia Thornton, China Leadership Monitor, December 1, 2023
45. Chinese prisoner’s ID card apparently found in lining of Regatta coat
Amy Hawkins, The Guardian, December 1, 2023
46. ‘Substantial volume’ of clothing tied to Uyghur forced labour entering EU, says study
Amy Hawkins, The Guardian, December 6, 2023
47. Volkswagen-commissioned audit finds no signs of forced labor at plant in China's Xinjiang region
Associated Press, Washington Post, December 6, 2023
…
Jim Wormington, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, said Wednesday that the risk of reprisals against auditors and workers in Xinjiang means that “no audit can credibly claim to have investigated labor conditions at factories in the region.”
He added that the summary of the audit provided by Volkswagen made it difficult to assess its methodology and findings. The automaker did not release the full report.
Adrian Zenz, a scholar who has studied the forced labor issue in Xinjiang extensively, said on Wednesday that new evidence from Xinjiang police files showed that Uyghurs were sent from re-education camps directly to vocational institutions that organized job fairs with Volkswagen as a typical work destination.
“The ramification is that re-educated and coerced Uyghurs can likely end up working for larger companies such as FAW-Volkswagen in Xinjiang,” said Zenz, China director and senior fellow in China studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. “This risk cannot be ascertained through audits, since Uyghurs are not free to speak about camp or re-education experiences, or about other coercive and repressive state measures in their lives.”
Loening acknowledged the difficulty of conducting audits in China. “The situation in China and Xinjiang and the challenges in collecting data for audits are well known,” he said.
COMMENT – I’m pretty sure this is the same Volkswagen that was forced to pay $14.7 billion to settle with the U.S. Department of Justice over a multi-year campaign to deceive regulators and customers on their diesel emissions. (here’s a fact sheet from the U.S. EPA on Volkswagen’s deception).
Any company that used ‘defeat devices’ to cheat emissions tests in the United States, seems more than willing to conspire with the Chinese Communist Party to hide forced labor abuses in Xinjiang.
Call me skeptical about anything Volkswagen claims.
48. Volkswagen shareholders demand more scrutiny after Xinjiang audit
Victoria Waldersee, Reuters, December 6, 2023
Volkswagen must regularly check its operations in China to ensure its supply chains are safe and comply with human rights laws, two of the carmaker's investors said, after an audit of its jointly owned Xinjiang site found no sign of forced labour.
The demands made by Union Investment and Deka Investment on Wednesday reflect ongoing concerns over Volkswagen's engagement in the Xinjiang region, where rights groups have documented abuses including forced labour in detention camps.
Beijing denies any such abuses.
The result of the Volkswagen-commissioned audit comes as Germany is carefully recalibrating its relationship with China, its biggest trading partner, to reduce its exposure to a market that is also a systemic rival.
Volkswagen said on Tuesday that the much-anticipated audit, which was carried out by Germany's Loening Human Rights & Responsible Business GmbH and two Chinese lawyers from a firm in Shenzhen, had found no evidence of forced labour.
Loening, however, noted that the audit had been limited to the site, a joint venture with SAIC Motor, adding the situation in Xinjiang and the challenges in collecting data for audits were well known.
Germany's Association of Critical Shareholders (DKA), which represents small investors on environmental, social and governance issues, said the audit was raising more questions than it answers.
"If even a single audit ... is so difficult, and can only happen without freedom of expression and labour union rights ... further audits can hardly be considered an effective measure," DKA co-managing director Tilman Massa said.
NO 'ONE-OFF EXERCISE'
While calling the audit a step in the right direction, Henrik Pontzen, who heads sustainability and ESG at Union Investment, said Volkswagen had not yet reached its goal.
"There is still a lot to do: In China, audits must not remain a one-off exercise. A functioning complaints management system must also be established," he said.
He also said that Volkswagen's corporate governance, which has drawn criticism from some of its smaller shareholders, remained the Achilles heel of Europe's top automaker.
Ingo Speich of Deka Investment, which according to LSEG data owns $99 million worth of Volkswagen's preferred stock, welcomed the results of the audit but demanded more transparency in Volkswagen's supply chain.
"Investor pressure has worked. VW has followed the example set by BASF, which already started audits in China at a very early stage," he said.
Shares in Volkswagen were up 3.4% to 112.26 euros at 1144 GMT, lifting them to the top of the gainers on Germany's blue-chip index, with traders pointing to relief after index provider MSCI gave it a 'red flag' in its social issue category in 2022, prompting some investors to drop the stock.
Volkswagen's stock market value has halved to 57.6 billion euros in the past two years. Its shares are down 26% year-to-date, underperforming a 37% rise in the STOXX Europe 600 Auto index .
The automaker's shares trade at just 3 times forward earnings over the next 12 months, down from 8.8 two years ago, which was the highest among its European competitors.
The price-to-earnings ratio, widely used in financial markets to gauge the relative value of stocks, is now below the 5 for the European car sector.
49. Xiamen’s Xunsiding Church: Pastor and Wife Asked to Pay a $63,632 Fine
Yu Chuntao, Bitter Winter, December 5, 2023
Pastor Yang Xibo and his wife Wang Xiaofei filed an appeal against the unreasonable sanction but lost. The fine was increased.
50. Up to 600 North Korean defectors deported by China 'vanish' - rights group
Hyonhee Shin, Reuters, December 7, 2023
Up to 600 North Koreans have "vanished" after being forcibly deported by China in October, a Seoul-based human rights group said on Thursday, warning they may face imprisonment, torture, sexual violence and execution in the isolated state.
The report by the Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG) came about two months after South Korea lodged a protest with China over the suspected repatriation of a large of number of North Koreans who were trying to flee to South Korea.
Industrial Policies and Economic Espionage
51. China’s economy is suffering from long covid
The Economist, November 30, 2023
52. Chinese Experts Push Back at Moody’s for Cutting Bond Outlook
Bloomberg, December 5, 2023
53. EU expected to issue veiled warning to China over supply of cut-cost goods
Lisa O'Carroll, The Guardian, December 5, 2023
54. The New Trend for Chinese Companies — Dropping China
Eliot Chen, The Wire China, July 9, 2023
55. How Anticorruption Enforcement Shapes R&D Subsidies and Firm Innovation in China
Lily Fang, Josh Lerner, et al, Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions, December 1, 2023
56. GAC and Changan push into Southeast Asia in 2nd China EV wave
Kenya Akama, Shizuka Tanabe, and Kosuke Inoue, Nikkei Asia, December 1, 2023
57. China is building nuclear reactors faster than any other country
The Economist, November 30, 2023
58. Shidaowan: world’s first fourth-generation nuclear reactor begins commercial operation on China’s east coast
Victoria Bela, South China Morning Post, December 6, 2023
59. China lays out contrasting vision for financial system, rejects ‘predatory’ Western outlook
Ji Siqi, South China Morning Post, December 6, 2023
60. China’s economic data again under the microscope, local authorities warned over falsifying statistics
Frank Chen, South China Morning Post, December 1, 2023
61. China-Latin America Ties Deepen Amid Boom in Cross-Border Auto Trade, E-Commerce
Li Rongqian, Bao Yunhong, Yu Cong and JZhang, Caixin Global, December 6, 2023
62. Tech War or Phony War? China’s Response to America’s Controls on Semiconductor Fabrication Equipment
Douglas Fuller, China Leadership Monitor, December 1, 2023
63. The Big Risk Causing Investors to Shun China
Dave Sebastian, Wall Street Journal, December 1, 2023
64. Chinese manufacturing activity contracts in sign of economy losing steam
Benjamin Wilhelm, Financial Times, November 30, 2023
65. Global pension funds now balking at China
Mike Dolan, Reuters, December 1, 2023
66. China e-cigarette titan behind 'Elf Bar' floods the US with illegal vapes
Chris Kirkham and David Kirton, Reuters, December 6, 2023
67. Young Chinese spurn traditional investments in favour of gold
Casey Hall and Amy Lv, Reuters, December 5, 2023
68. Rising war risks prompt property insurers to rethink cover
Carolyn Cohn and Noor Zainab Hussain, Reuters, December 6, 2023
69. TuSimple Winds Down U.S. Operations as It Looks for Buyer
Heather Somerville, Wall Street Journal, December 4, 2023
Cyber & Information Technology
70. China Secretly Transforms Huawei into Most Powerful Chip War Weapon
Bloomberg, December 1, 2023
71. Taiwan outlines five critical tech fields under its protection
Thompson Chau, Nikkei Asia, December 6, 2023
72. China’s AI Chipmaker Biren Wins $280 Million In Funding Pledge After US Sanction
Dong Cao and Pei Li, Bloomberg, December 1, 2023
73. Fragmenting cyberspace: The future of the internet in China
Rebecca Arcesati, Kai von Carnap, Jeroen Groenewegen-Lau, and Antonia Hmaidi, Mercator Institute for China Studies, November 30, 2023
74. Nvidia’s CEO Still Plans to Sell High-End Chips in China
Liza Lin, Wall Street Journal, December 6, 2023
Jensen Huang says Nvidia will work with regulators to develop compliant chips, days after Raimondo sounded warning over workarounds.
Nvidia’s NVDA CEO said he still hopes to supply high-end processors to China, days after U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo warned U.S. companies against sales of AI-enabling chips to the country in the name of national security.
“Our plan now is to continue to work with the U.S. government to come up with a new set of products to comply with the new regulations,” Jensen Huang told reporters in Singapore Wednesday. “The new regulations have additional limits. We have to come up with new products to comply with those regulations.”
The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company has come under scrutiny in recent weeks for seeking to redesign its advanced chips to cater to the Chinese market soon after U.S. officials put out rules to stem sales of artificial-intelligence chips. In October, U.S. officials tightened chip restrictions to shut out the sales of Nvidia’s China-specific graphics processing units, used by many Chinese companies for cloud and building AI programs.
The latest round of U.S. export curbs had left $5 billion worth of Nvidia’s chips in limbo, The Wall Street Journal has reported. China has historically formed about 20% of Nvidia’s revenue, Huang said on Wednesday.
Nvidia is working on a new lineup of AI chips customized for China, called the H20 and L20, the Journal reported in November. The company developed new chips within weeks in the hope of continuing sales to China, according to people familiar with the matter.
The most powerful of the chips, the H20, would fall short of the processor performance thresholds that would require an export license, according to an analysis by Bernstein Research.
Huang didn’t confirm the company was working on the chips, choosing instead to emphasize Nvidia’s acquiescence with U.S. export rules.
Days before Huang’s comments, Raimondo fired a warning shot to American chip companies about such behavior, adding that regulators would seek to clamp down on companies’ moves to work around government export controls.
“Our intent is to deny China technologies that can do XYZ, so I’m telling you, that if you redesign chips around a particular cut line that enables them to do AI…I’m going to control it the very next day,” she said at a fireside chat in California.
COMMENT – Until some fairly significant penalties are imposed on companies like Nvidia, we will continue to see efforts to circumvent and find loopholes, creating a never-ending game of whack-a-mole that fails to achieve the purpose that the Administration says it wants to achieve. I fear that in this case, half-measures are counterproductive.
75. Apple moves towards India-made iPhone batteries in push away from China
Qianer Liu and John Reed, Financial Times, December 6, 2023
Military and Security Threats
Nectar Gan, CNN, December 6, 2023
Chinese warships have docked for the first time at Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base, which is undergoing a Chinese-funded upgrade that has drawn concerns from the United States over its potential role in expanding China’s overseas military footprint.
Cambodia’s Defense Minister Tea Seiha visited the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy warships docked at the Ream port on Sunday along with his father – and predecessor – Tea Banh, according to a post on the official’s Facebook page.
While the post did not specifically mention the Chinese military, the accompanying photos showed two PLA Navy corvettes docked side by side. On board one of the corvettes, identified as the “Wenshan” on the vessel’s gangplank, Tea Banh reviewed a row of Chinese naval officers.
77. US monitoring reports of Chinese warships at Cambodian base
David Brunnstrom, Reuters, December 7, 2023
78. Japan adds Chinese nuclear weapons lab and others to WMD concern list
Anna Nishino and Toru Tsunashima, Nikkei Asia, December 6, 2023
79. U.S. to deploy new ground-based missiles to Indo-Pacific in 2024
Ryo Nakamura and Ken Moriyasu, Nikkei Asia, December 3, 2023
80. US Navy, UK, Australia Will Test AI System to Help Crews Track Chinese Submarines in the Pacific
Anthony Capaccio, Bloomberg, December 2, 2023
81. The Philippines opens a new monitoring base on a remote island in the disputed South China Sea
Jim Gomez, Aaron Favila, and Joeal Calupitan, Associated Press, December 1, 2023
82. China's military buildup enough to win a war with US
Grant Newsham, Asia Times, November 30, 2023
83. Huge Chinese Flotilla Swarms Whitsun Reef
The Maritime Executive, December 4, 2023
84. No Winners in This Game
Emily Kilcrease, Center for New American Security, December 1, 2023
85. China is Running an Operation to Get Americans Hooked on Illegal Drugs, Former DEA Boss Warns
John Solomon, Tennessee Star, December 1, 2023
86. Pentagon plans a drone army to counter China's market dominance
Eva Dou and Gerrit De Vynck, Washington Post, December 1, 2023
87. On a Tiny Island in the Middle of Nowhere, 250 People Are Fending Off China
Fruhlein Chrys Econar, Wall Street Journal, December 2, 2023
88. China says its fighters shadowed US Navy patrol plane over Taiwan Strait
Reuters, December 6, 2023
One Belt, One Road Strategy
89. Italy formally pulls out of China’s Belt and Road Initiative
Amy Kazmin, Financial Times, December 6, 2023
COMMENT – Great job by the Italian Government.
90. Attack on Pakistan highway to China shakes key Belt and Road link
Adnan Aamir, Nikkei Asia, December 6, 2023
Opinion Pieces
91. The U.S. Can Afford a Bigger Military. We Just Can’t Build It.
Greg Ip, Wall Street Journal, December 6, 2023
92. Chinese Private Security Companies: Neither Blackwater nor The Wagner Group
Alessandro Arduino, War on the Rocks, December 1, 2023
93. Henry Kissinger on Power and Morality
Walter Russell Mead, Wall Street Journal, December 4, 2023
94. Henry Kissinger’s Hard Compromises
Evan Osnos, New Yorker, November 30, 2023
95. House Republicans Going Soft on China
National Review, November 30, 2023
96. America’s newest security threat: Chinese lasers
Emily Benson and Catharine Mouradian, The Hill, November 29, 2023
97. The ‘no limits’ Russo-Chinese alliance is taking flight
Stephen Blank, The Hill, December 1, 2023
98. Taiwan’s Election Isn’t About War. It’s About Clarity.
Vincent Y. Chao, The Diplomat, December 1, 2023
99. Beijing is Not Returning to its Reform Agenda
Max J. Zenglein and Jacob Gunter, The Wire China, December 3, 2023
100. America’s Chance to Blunt China’s Encroachment
Daniel Silverberg and Elena McGovern, Wall Street Journal, December 4, 2023