Cherry blossoms and 47 Ronin

Mar 10, 2024

Friends,

March is a time of renewal as those of us in the northern hemisphere get a taste of spring. I’m here is Tokyo and some cherry blossoms are already blooming.

Here are some photos that I took this morning walking around… which generated the title of this week’s post.

In the background of these cherry blossoms is the entrance to Sengaku-ji, a Sōtō Zen Buddhist Temple in the Takanawa neighborhood of Tokyo. It’s a beautiful complex and at 6:30am on a Sunday, it is completely empty.

Sengaku-ji contains the graves of the legendary 47 Ronin, the samurai (aged 16 to 83, as I learned this morning) who avenged the death of their master Asano, Lord of Ako, who had been stripped of his land and titles, then forced to commit seppuku for offending a corrupt shogunate official in 1701.

Perhaps the defining story of Edo-era Japan.

Two years after their lord’s death, his retainers (known as Ako Gishi, or Lord Ako’s samurai) sought out the official, beheaded him, washed the head in a well, and placed the official’s head on their master’s grave. The 47 surrendered themselves, committed seppuku, and were buried next to their master.

Each year, the Ako Gishi Sai Festival is held on the grounds of the Sengaku-ji Temple.

Kubi-Arai (head washing) Well. The sign reads:

“After the retainers accomplished the avenge by killing Kira, they marched to Sengaku-ji to report to their lord’s grave. When they arrived, they first washed Kira’s decapitated head (kubi) at this well and then laid it in front of their lord’s grave and announced their success.”

The Zen Buddhist Temple at Sengaku-ji.

For those of you who haven’t heard it, it’s a fascinating story of justice and honor (it isn’t anything like the 2013 Keanu Reeves film, 47 Ronin).

Back to the main thing…

March means something else for folks in Beijing, it is time for the ‘two sessions.’

This is the term applied to the annual meetings of the National Peoples’ Congress (NPC) and the Chinese Peoples’ Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

The first is a rubber-stamp legislature which the Chinese Communist Party employs to give a veneer of democratic legitimacy to their monopoly hold on power (something Xi Jinping calls a “whole-process people’s democracy”… which in Orwellian doublespeak is not democracy at all, but how the people are directed to follow the commands of the Chinese leader).

The second is a coordination meeting for United Front Work, the term used to describe political interference and influence across the PRC and in foreign countries.

The most eyebrow-raising thing to come out of the two sessions was not what was briefed in the various work reports, but what didn’t happen.

For the first time since 1993, the Premier did not hold a press conference at the end to answer questions about to state of the country or the direction in the future. If the Party is truly interested in boosting investor confidence, cancelling that long-held tradition was not a good idea.

Let me make a prediction: During the World Economic Forum in Davos next year (probably on Tuesday, January 21, 2025), the PRC Premier, Li Qiang, will give another speech. In it, he will announce that the PRC has once again [magically] met its growth target with perhaps 5.1% for 2024.

He won’t show the math (and since the PRC has essentially made economic data a state secret, no one will be able to recreate the number), but he will assure the world that everything is fine and under the steady hand and wisdom of Chairman Xi.

If we dig into the work reports of the two sessions, two things jumped out as important.

Despite significant economic headwinds facing the PRC and its enormous debts, the Party announced yet another year of defense budget increases, this time a 7.2% increase.

The NPC report also dropped the term “peaceful reunification” with reference to Taiwan, suggesting that internally Beijing is coming to realize that the use of force is the only likely way to achieve their objective.

Taken together, these are disturbing signals to the world.

***

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few days, you likely heard that Congressional action on TikTok is back on the agenda.

It has been a crazy few days for those of us watching and I’m curious to see how this plays out.

Let’s recap:

On Wednesday last week, Congressman Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), the Chair and Ranking Member of the House Select Committee on the CCP introduced a bill that would force ByteDance to divest of TikTok or have the app banned in the United States.

The White House then announced its support for the bill and leadership scheduled a vote in the House Energy and Commerce Committee for Thursday.

[In fairness, the White House is sending conflicting signals as it denounces TikTok as a threat and supports this legislation, while simultaneously using TikTok as a highly successful tool for Biden’s reelection campaign, see: Biden the President Wants to Curb TikTok. Biden the Candidate Embraces Its Stars. (New York Times, March 8, 2024) and President Biden would ban TikTok. But candidate Biden is using it for his campaign (NPR, March 6, 2024)]

On Thursday morning, TikTok mounted a massive influence campaign of push notifications and robocalls to pressure members of Congress to vote down the bill.

That campaign backfired spectacularly with the House Energy and Commerce Committee voting for the bill 50-0.

How did TikTok convinced itself that the best way to persuade Members of Congress that TikTok isn’t a threat vector for foreign interference was to demonstrate that they could manipulate hundreds of thousands of voters at the drop of the hat?

Things were beginning to look pretty bad for ByteDance as the country tuned in for the State of the Union address. What had looked like a pretty remote possibility earlier that week, suddenly seemed on the verge of happening as the bill seemed posed to go over to the Senate where it might get placed in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for passage in June.

Then as President Biden was busy demonstrating that he still had fight in him, former President Trump posted this on his own social media platform:

Yes… this is the same individual who signed an Executive Order nearly four years ago to do the same thing. The Executive Order was actually titled: “Executive Order on Addressing the Threat Posed by TikTok.”

Let me paste the entire EO here:

EXECUTIVE ORDER ON ADDRESSING THE THREAT POSED BY TIKTOK
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code,
I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, find that additional steps must be taken to deal with the national emergency with respect to the information and communications technology and services supply chain declared in Executive Order 13873 of May 15, 2019 (Securing the Information and Communications Technology and Services Supply Chain). Specifically, the spread in the United States of mobile applications developed and owned by companies in the People’s Republic of China (China) continues to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States. At this time, action must be taken to address the threat posed by one mobile application in particular, TikTok.
TikTok, a video-sharing mobile application owned by the Chinese company ByteDance Ltd., has reportedly been downloaded over 175 million times in the United States and over one billion times globally. TikTok automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users, including Internet and other network activity information such as location data and browsing and search histories. This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information — potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.
TikTok also reportedly censors content that the Chinese Communist Party deems politically sensitive, such as content concerning protests in Hong Kong and China’s treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities. This mobile application may also be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the Chinese Communist Party, such as when TikTok videos spread debunked conspiracy theories about the origins of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus.
These risks are real. The Department of Homeland Security, Transportation Security Administration, and the United States Armed Forces have already banned the use of TikTok on Federal Government phones. The Government of India recently banned the use of TikTok and other Chinese mobile applications throughout the country; in a statement, India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology asserted that they were “stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data in an unauthorized manner to servers which have locations outside India.” American companies and organizations have begun banning TikTok on their devices. The United States must take aggressive action against the owners of TikTok to protect our national security.
Accordingly, I hereby order:
Section 1. (a) The following actions shall be prohibited beginning 45 days after the date of this order, to the extent permitted under applicable law: any transaction by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, with ByteDance Ltd. (a.k.a. Zìjié Tiàodòng), Beijing, China, or its subsidiaries, in which any such company has any interest, as identified by the Secretary of Commerce (Secretary) under section 1(c) of this order.
(b) The prohibition in subsection (a) of this section applies except to the extent provided by statutes, or in regulations, orders, directives, or licenses that may be issued pursuant to this order, and notwithstanding any contract entered into or any license or permit granted before the date of this order.
(c) 45 days after the date of this order, the Secretary shall identify the transactions subject to subsection (a) of this section.
Sec. 2. (a) Any transaction by a United States person or within the United States that evades or avoids, has the purpose of evading or avoiding, causes a violation of, or attempts to violate the prohibition set forth in this order is prohibited.
(b) Any conspiracy formed to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.
Sec. 3. For the purposes of this order:
(a) the term “person” means an individual or entity;
(b) the term “entity” means a government or instrumentality of such government, partnership, association, trust, joint venture, corporation, group, subgroup, or other organization, including an international organization; and
(c) the term “United States person” means any United States citizen, permanent resident alien, entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States (including foreign branches), or any person in the United States.
Sec. 4. The Secretary is hereby authorized to take such actions, including adopting rules and regulations, and to employ all powers granted to me by IEEPA as may be necessary to implement this order. The Secretary may, consistent with applicable law, redelegate any of these functions within the Department of Commerce. All departments and agencies of the United States shall take all appropriate measures within their authority to implement this order.
Sec. 5. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department, agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
DONALD J. TRUMP
THE WHITE HOUSE, August 6, 2020.

By Saturday, it was getting more interesting as Politico revealed that Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s long-time advisor, had suddenly started working for the Club for Growth and had been advocating on behalf of TikTok on Capitol Hill (after a multi-year feud, Trump and the Club for Growth made peace back in early February).

Kellyanne Conway advocating for TikTok on Capitol Hill (Daniel Lippman, Politico, March 9, 2024)

So what’s going on?

It seems to lead back to Jeff Yass.

The Philadelphia billionaire, Vice Chair of the Cato Institute, and mega-donor to the Club for Growth, also owns a 7% stake in ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company. Apparently, Yass has decided to make some significant campaign contributions and those who receive his largesse happen to become vocal defenders of TikTok.

I’m sure that’s only a coincidence and there is no quid pro quo.

For a bit more background, refer to these:

The Billionaire Keeping TikTok on Phones in the U.S. (Wall Street Journal, September 20, 2023)

Financier Jeff Yass made a big bet on the app, and he’s a top donor to lawmakers who support it.
TikTok had hardly any friends in government earlier this year as the Biden administration, Congress and state legislatures were threatening to ban the Chinese-owned video giant.
TikTok now has many more friends, with something in common: backing from billionaire financier Jeff Yass. They’ve helped stall attempts to outlaw America’s most-downloaded app.
Yass’s investment company, Susquehanna International Group, bet big on TikTok in 2012, buying a stake in parent company ByteDance now measured at about 15%. That translates into a personal stake for Yass of 7% in ByteDance. It is worth roughly $21 billion based on the company’s recent valuation, or much of his $28 billion net worth as gauged by Bloomberg.
Yass is also one of the top donors to the Club for Growth, an influential conservative group that rallied Republican opposition to a TikTok ban. Yass has donated $61 million to the Club for Growth’s political-spending arm since 2010, or about 24% of its total, according to federal records.
Club for Growth made public its opposition to banning TikTok in March, in an opinion article by its president, at a time when sentiment against the platform among segments of both parties was running high on Capitol Hill. Days later, Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) stood up on the Senate floor and quashed an attempt to fast-track a bill by Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) to ban downloading of the TikTok app.
“We will be acting like the Chinese government if we ban TikTok here,” Paul said around that time.
In June, Yass donated $3 million to a political committee backing Paul. Including that contribution, Yass and his wife, Janine Yass, have donated more than $24 million to Paul or committees that support him since 2015, according to federal records. Club for Growth has given a Paul-supporting political committee $1.8 million since 2020.

This Controversial Philly Billionaire May Be TikTok’s Secret Weapon (Philadelphia Magazine, September 20, 2023
Republican billionaire with $33B TikTok stake ‘bullies’ lawmakers to stop bill forcing Chinese ByteDance sale (New York Post, March 7, 2024)
3 theories to explain Trump's TikTok flip-flop (Business Insider, March 9, 2024)

What’s next?

There is a battle underway between Republicans… who knows how this will turn out.

Thanks for reading!

Matt

Share China Articles

MUST READ

1. Don’t Invest in China, Goldman Sachs Wealth Management CIO Warns
Jacob Gu, Bloomberg, March 4, 2024

China’s big stock-market declines aren’t enough to warrant putting money in the country, according to the chief investment officer of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s wealth-management business.
“All our clients are asking us that question — given how cheap China appears, people inevitably say, well, has it discounted the worst news?” Sharmin Mossavar-Rahmani said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “Our view is that one should not invest in China.”

COMMENT – She won’t be getting an invitation to Beijing any time soon.

To watch the video of her, here at minute 4:12 and on.

“First and foremost, we think the [Chinese] economy is going to continue to slow down over the next ten years. That’s a very important factor.”

“Data is unclear, we don’t really have a good grasp of what growth was last year or what growth will be this year. They formally published a growth rate above 5% for 2023, but most people believe that is not the real growth number. It was actually a lot weaker.”

When the Chief Investment Officer of Goldman Sachs’ wealth management says to avoid investing in the PRC and that the PRC Government is lying about its most important economic data, you should probably pay attention.

And to make the point even stronger, here is the Editor-in-Chief of The Economist, Zanny Minton Beddoes yesterday on Bloomberg:

2. VIDEO – Beddoes: China is Uninvestable for Outsiders

Zanny Minton Beddoes, Bloomberg, March 9, 2024

BEDDOES: There is a lot of worry about the depth of the problem that the Chinese economy is in.
Is this a Japan-style multi-year, perhaps multi-decade malaise? Or is it something they can fix in the short term?
No one really knows and compound that with the fact that Xi Jinping has amassed ever more power around himself.
One of the really striking things about this week’s gathering [the two sessions in Beijing], and this gets into a kind of Kremlinology of what’s going on in China, but the Premier [Li Qiang], who traditionally gives a press conference at the end of this meeting, this time that’s not going to happen.
No one apparently can speak, other than the word of Xi Jinping and the working report of what’s coming for the Chinese economy has more and more references to Xi Jinping.
So he is asserting a lot of control, there are ambitious targets, but no clear path on how to get there. And this in an environment where the economy is really very weak and consumer confidence is very, very low.
So its pretty bad actually.
MODERATOR: So no news conference this year you said, but I think they indicated that they wouldn’t have one until further notice.

COMMENT – I suspect that the CCP intended that the two sessions last week would buoy investor confidence… the opposite has happened.

3. Biden Acts to Stop Sales of Sensitive Personal Data to China and Russia

David McCabe, New York Times, February 28, 2024

In an attempt to limit blackmail and other harm, he issued an executive order asking the Justice Department to write rules restricting sales to six countries.
President Biden issued an executive order Wednesday seeking to restrict the sale of sensitive American data to China, Russia and four more countries, a first-of-its-kind attempt to keep personally identifying information from being obtained for blackmail, scams or other harm.
The president asked the Justice Department to write rules restricting the sale of information about Americans’ locations, health and genetics to China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela, as well as any entities linked to those countries. The restrictions would also cover financial information, biometric data and other types of information that could identify individuals and sensitive information related to the government.
The White House said this kind of sensitive data could be used for blackmail, “especially for those in the military or national security community,” and against dissidents, journalists and academics.
The new restrictions would be the United States’ first-ever broad prohibition on the sale of digital data to individual countries in an era when companies known as data brokers assemble huge amounts of information on people, from favorite hobbies to household income and health conditions, and then typically sell it to marketers that target them with ads.

4. Joe Biden says Chinese smart cars could pose US security threat
Demetri Sevastopulo and Joe Leahy, Financial Times, February 29, 2024

Joe Biden has ordered an investigation into whether Chinese “connected” vehicles, including electric cars, pose a security risk to Americans, as he tries to prevent China from flooding the US market.
The US president directed his commerce department to determine what measures his administration should take to prevent China from undermining national security through the export of “connected” vehicles. He said the “unprecedented” move was designed to ensure America maintained what he said was its “dynamic auto industry”.
“China is determined to dominate the future of the auto market, including by using unfair practices,” Biden said as he announced the investigation on Thursday. “China’s policies could flood our market with its vehicles, posing risks to our national security. I’m not going to let that happen on my watch.”
Biden said most cars were now “connected”, making them “like smartphones on wheels”. He said he was concerned Chinese vehicles could collect sensitive data about US citizens and infrastructure, and that the information could be sent back to China and enable its government to remotely access the vehicles.
“China imposes restrictions on American autos and other foreign autos operating in China,” Biden added. “Why should connected vehicles from China be allowed to operate in our country without safeguards?”
US commerce secretary Gina Raimondo said “connected” cars were able to collect huge amounts of sensitive data, from driving routes to biometric information. “It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out how a foreign adversary like China with access to this sort of information at scale could pose a serious risk for national security and the privacy of US citizens,” she said.
Raimondo said the US was taking action “before Chinese manufactured vehicles become widespread in the United States”. White House national economic adviser Lael Brainard noted China had imposed restrictions that prevented connected vehicles from operating in China unless those cars used only Chinese software and only provided data gathered to Chinese groups.
While the officials stressed the security implications, Washington is also concerned about China’s industrial overcapacity and the possibility that Chinese groups could dump products, including electric vehicles, on international markets.

5. House panel unanimously approves bill that could ban TikTok

Brian Fung, CNN, March 7, 2024

A powerful House committee advanced a bill on Thursday that could lead to a nationwide ban against TikTok on all electronic devices, renewing lawmakers’ challenge to one of the world’s most popular social media apps and highlighting unresolved fears that TikTok may pose a Chinese government spying risk.
The measure that sailed unanimously through the House Energy and Commerce Committee would prohibit TikTok from US app stores unless the social media platform — used by roughly 170 million Americans — is quickly spun off from its China-linked parent company, ByteDance.
If enacted, the bill would give ByteDance 165 days, or a little more than five months, to sell TikTok. If not divested by that date, it would be illegal for app store operators such as Apple and Google to make it available for download. The bill also contemplates similar prohibitions for other apps “controlled by foreign adversary companies.”
It’s the most aggressive legislation targeting TikTok to come out of a congressional committee since company CEO Shou Chew testified to lawmakers last year that the app poses no threat to Americans.
“Today, we will take the first step in creating long-overdue laws to protect Americans from the threat posed by apps controlled by our adversaries, and to send a very strong message that the US will always stand up for our values and freedom,” said Washington Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the panel’s chair.
New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone, its ranking Democrat, compared the bill to prior efforts to regulate the US airwaves, citing testimony from national security officials from a closed-door hearing earlier Thursday.
“I take the concerns raised by the intelligence community this morning very seriously,” Pallone said. “They have asked Congress to give them more authority to act in these narrowly defined situations, and I believe that this bill will do that.”

6. White House works with Hill to ban TikTok

John Bresnahan and Jake Sherman, Punchbowl News, March 6, 2024

The Biden White House is backing a bipartisan bill that could lead to a ban on the hugely popular social media app TikTok in the United States.
The legislation, which we scooped yesterday, would force ByteDance to sell TikTok if it wants to remain in U.S. app stores. The bill is set for a markup Thursday in the House Energy and Commerce Committee following a classified hearing with officials from the FBI, Justice Department and Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Not only is the Biden administration sending these officials to brief the committee but the White House provided lawmakers with technical assistance when they were drafting the bill, according to several sources familiar with the effort.
Having support from the Biden administration — which has undergone a sharp internal debate over TikTok’s future, according to multiple Democratic and GOP sources on the Hill — is big. Previous congressional efforts to ban TikTok didn’t have White House backing. Congress was able to pass legislation removing TikTok from government phones, but that was it.
Yet there will still be opposition from both the right and left on any TikTok bill, so this is no slam dunk despite the White House support. We’ll also note that President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign just got on TikTok several weeks ago.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said Speaker Mike Johnson and GOP leaders will back this proposal, which she hopes to bring to the floor soon after Thursday’s markup.
“It’s a very narrow bill that we’ve been working with the China Select Committee very closely on,” McMorris Rodgers told us Tuesday night. The Washington Republican said Johnson and other House GOP leaders support the measure.

7. New Tech Scare Over NATO Ally After Russian Tapping Fiasco
Didi Kirsten Tatlow, Newsweek, March 6, 2024

The military in NATO ally Germany is offering communications apps to soldiers and other federal employees on Chinese phone maker Huawei's app store — even though the telecoms giant has been deemed a security risk by the U.S. and European Union, Newsweek can reveal.
Security analysts expressed concern at the potential for breaches of the system and said it raised new questions over Germany's commitment to information security after the embarrassing recent tapping of a top-level German security discussion by Russia.
BWI GmbH, the dedicated IT provider of the German army, known as the Bundeswehr, launched the BundesMessenger app for up to five million federal employees last December on Huawei's AppGallery, as well as on Google's Android and Apple's iOS stores. Since 2021 about 100,000 German soldiers are using another app, BwMessenger, also developed by BWI, that is also on the Huawei AppGallery, the company told Newsweek.
"With BwMessenger you can communicate about official business just as you would in your private life," BWI's website says. About BundesMessenger it says, "Sovereignty, security and freedom. A free messenger for the public sector."

COMMENT - Come on Berlin, be better!

I will admit, given the absolute cluster-f@%k surrounding TikTok, Americans have a tough time lecturing anyone.

8. Biden says he would sign TikTok crackdown, Trump raises concerns

David Shepardson and Nandita Bose, Reuters, March 9, 2024

President Joe Biden said on Friday he would sign legislation that gives China's ByteDance about six months to divest the popular TikTok short video app as his rival Donald Trump raised concerns about a ban of the service used by 170 million Americans.
The U.S. House of Representatives plans to vote on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week on the TikTok crackdown bill after a committee on Thursday unanimously approved the measure. The House will vote on the proposal under rules requiring two-thirds of members to vote "yes" to win approval.

9. VIDEO - Technology, Foreign Policy, and National Security

Brian Lowery and H.R. McMaster, Stanford Graduate School of Business, March 4, 2024

How do we balance tensions between business interests and national security in a deeply connected world?
We benefit from immigration and in some cases rely on manufacturing capabilities and investment from countries like China but still need to be mindful of national security concerns associated with geopolitical competitors.

Authoritarianism

10. Provincial "Ideological Liberation" Campaign Calls for "Unswerving Alignment" with Xi Jinping
Alexander Boyd, China Digital Times, February 28, 2024

A provincial campaign to jumpstart cadres out of timidity and “formalism” raised hackles online for framing “ideological liberation” as adherence to Xi Jinping Thought. A notice published to a website run by Hunan’s Provincial Party Committee called for “the commencement of province-wide discussions on ideological liberation.” The lofty language is a call back to two pivotal earlier rounds of “ideological liberation”: the first in 1978, at the beginning of Reform and Opening two years after Mao’s death, and the second in 1992, after Deng Xiaoping’s Southern Tour. But liberation is not quite what it might seem. The Hunan notice set forth six “unswerving alignments” that will underpin the campaign—the first of which is absolute fealty to Xi Jinping’s guidance in the name of unity of thought:
All discussions pertaining to ideological liberation must be undertaken in unswerving alignment with the guidance set forth by Party Central and General Secretary Xi Jinping. We must further align ideology and action with the policies issued by Party Central with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core and to further unify the implementation of the proper direction with the guidance for Hunan set forth by Party Central and General Secretary Xi Jinping.
The five other “unswerving alignments” are likewise major Party priorities (sometimes packaged as “Xiconomics” by Chinese state media), belying a genuine commitment to freedom of thought: high-level development, people-centered development, comprehensive national security, whole-process people’s democracy, and exemplary cadre work habits.
The notice went viral on Weibo. Ironically, media outlets that shared Hunan’s call for discussions of liberation censored their own comment sections. Global Times and Guancha.cn—both nationalist websites, the former Party-run and the latter nominally independent—activated “curated comments” on their posts sharing the news—a relatively subtle way to screen dissenting views. Weibo user @Xīfēng posed a number of pertinent questions about the campaign: “How are we to realize ideological liberation while maintaining unity of thought?” “How are we to raise the birth rate while housing prices and daily essentials remain costly?” “How are we to improve entrepreneur’s confidence while policies are in flux?” “How are grassroots cadres to remain positive even as state employees take pay cuts?”

11. China’s Secret to Controlling the Internet
Minxin Pei, Foreign Policy, March 6, 2024

12. China defense budget grows 7.2% despite other 'belt-tightening'
Kenji Kawase, Nikkei Asia, March 5, 2024

13. Xi Jinping’s hunger for power is hurting China’s economy
The Economist, March 6, 2024

14. The “One-China Principle”: China’s “Norm” versus Global Realities
Amrita Jash, Global Taiwan Institute, February 21, 2024

The Many Different International Interpretations of Taiwan’s Status
These tactics by the PRC serve as a means of reinforcing the “One-China Principle” as an established international norm. However, China’s claim that it is a “consensus” or “norm” is misleading. While many countries agree with elements of the PRC’s “One-China Principle,” there is a significant difference regarding the issue of Taiwan’s sovereignty. For instance, scholar Lee Tzu-wen has described nine primary categorizations of positions that states adopt in describing Taiwan’s position vis-á-vis China:
Those that view Taiwan as part of China (Belarus, South Africa, and others);
Those that “acknowledge” the PRC’s claim that Taiwan is an “inalienable part of China” (Australia, the United Kingdom, and others);
Those that “take note of” the PRC’s claim that Taiwan is an “inalienable part of China” (Brazil, Italy, and others);
Those that “understand and respect” the PRC’s claim that Taiwan is an “inalienable part of China” (Denmark, Japan, and others);
Those that “respect and support” the position of the PRC over Taiwan (Russia);
Those that “respect” the PRC’s claim that Taiwan is a province of the PRC (The Netherlands and South Korea);
Those that “acknowledge” the PRC’s position that Taiwan is part of China (the United States);
Those that make no explicit mention of Taiwan’s sovereignty (Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and others);
Those that neither recognize the PRC as the sole legitimate government of China, nor mention Taiwan’s sovereignty (the United Arab Emirates, Sweden, and others).
To this classification, one more category could be added: countries that recognize the Republic of China (ROC). This category would include Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic allies: Belize, Eswatini, Guatemala, Haiti, the Marshall Islands, Palau, Paraguay, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Tuvalu, and the Holy See.
China’s discourse on the “One-China Principle” as an “international norm” is also weakened by the fact that many countries have affirmed their support for Taiwan’s democratic system. For instance, Washington called Nauru’s diplomatic switch from Taipei to Beijing “disappointing,” while Japan’s foreign minister offered congratulations to Lai Ching-te on his victory in the 2024 presidential elections. More specifically, in 2023 the US Congress approved a USD $80 million package to Taiwan, the first to be implemented under Washington’s Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program, which generally involves grants or loans to sovereign countries. With so many countries maintaining their own, distinct “One-China Policy,” it is therefore misleading for Beijing to insist that its “One-China Principle” is an international norm.
The main point: Beijing has developed its narrative around the idea of “One-China,” presenting the “One-China Principle” as a basic international norm. China restates this position in the context of a misreading of UN Resolution 2758. However, China’s claim is misleading, since there exist many different positions amongst different countries regarding the issue of Taiwan’s sovereignty.

COMMENT – The above serves as a good cheat sheet for the various and differing positions that countries take on “One-China.”

15. UK ‘strongly’ calls on China to reconsider Hong Kong’s new national security law
Shweta Sharma, Independent, March 1, 2024

16. China Wants to Look Open. Under the Surface, Xi's Grip Is Clear.
Vivian Wang, New York Times, March 5, 2024

At China’s big political show, nervous exchanges with journalists and the tightly scripted pageantry showed how Xi Jinping has centralized control.
Finally, it appeared, things were back to normal.
As nearly 3,000 delegates filed into Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on Tuesday for the opening of China’s annual legislative meeting, none wore face masks. Officials pressed together to shake hands and pose for photos. Around them, reporters and diplomats from around the world milled about the cavernous lobby, many invited back for the first time since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic four years earlier.
It was one of China’s highest-profile political stages, and the message being sent was clear: The country’s prolonged isolation was over, and it was once more open to the world and ready for business.
But normal in today’s China has a different meaning than before. And beneath the veneer of openness were signs of how much China has changed in the past four years, becoming more insular, more regimented, more tightly bound to the one-person rule of its top leader, Xi Jinping.
To be allowed into the Great Hall, where China’s most important political meetings take place, attendees still had to take a government-arranged Covid test. Unlike in previous years, when a report containing the government’s annual economic growth target was made public at the start of the opening ceremony, this year it was initially shared only with delegates and diplomats.
In perhaps the biggest departure from previous years, officials announced that China’s premier, the country’s No. 2 official, would no longer take questions at the end of the weeklong legislative session. It was the end of a three-decades-long tradition, one of the few opportunities for journalists to interact with a top leader.
“That’s where the premier’s news conference used to be,” one Chinese man in a suit pointed out to another in a low voice as they walked through the hall on Tuesday.
Guides with that kind of inside knowledge are important at Chinese political events like these, where the proceedings are so tightly choreographed that a casual observer might not know that things hadn’t always been this way.

17. How a Chinese X User in Italy Became a Beijing Target
Shen Lu, Wall Street Journal, March 6, 2024

18. A Window into Chinese Government Has Now Slammed Shut
Li Yuan, New York Times, March 6, 2024

19. Russia’s Backdoor for Battlefield Goods from China: Central Asia
Clarence Leong and Liza Lin, Wall Street Journal, March 4, 2024

Environmental Harms

20. Is China Cornering the Green Energy Transition in Latin America?
R. Evan Ellis, Diálogo Américas, February 28, 2024

Foreign Interference and Coercion

21. Japan about China?
Mahbi Maulaya, Lowy Institute, March 6, 2024

22. China Spurns Ukraine Diplomats at Home, Undermining Peace Push
Bloomberg, March 4, 2024

23. China drops 'peaceful reunification' reference to Taiwan
Yew Lun Tian and Laurie Chen, Reuters, March 5, 2024

24. New Frontiers in Foreign Propaganda
Dalia Parete, China Media Project, March 5, 2024

25. Watching China in Europe—March 2024
Noah Barkin, GMF, March 5, 2024

26. Gallagher, Bipartisan Coalition Introduce Legislation to Protect Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications, Including TikTok
The Select Committee on the CCP, March 5, 2024

27. The Maldives Is a Tiny Paradise. Why Are China and India Fighting Over It?
Alex Travelli and Maahil Mohamed, New York Times, March 5, 2024

28. Chinese Gangs Use Cryptocurrencies to Launder Billions
Weilun Soon and Elaine Yu, Wall Street Journal, March 2, 2024

Human Rights and Religious Persecution

29. EU reaches deal on forced labour ban, with China’s Xinjiang in its sights
Finbarr Bermingham, South China Morning Post, March 5, 2024

30. Surveillance Tech Series: DJI’s Links to Human Rights Abuses in East Turkistan
Nuzigum Setiwaldi, UHRP, March 5, 2024

31. Ukrainian YouTuber Finds Her AI Clone Selling Russian Goods on Chinese Internet
Wenhao Ma, VOA, February 29, 2024

32. UN rights chief says China committing violations in Xinjiang, Tibet

Reuters, March 4, 2024

33. Human rights groups back TikTok bill as lobbying battle heats up

Morgan Chalfant, Semafor, March 7, 2024

34. Top official from China's Xinjiang says 'Sinicization' of Islam 'inevitable'

Laurie Chen, Reuters, March 7, 2024

Xinjiang's top Communist Party official said on Thursday that the "Sinicisation" of Islam in the Muslim-majority region in northwestern China, where Beijing is accused of human rights abuses, is "inevitable".
"Everyone knows that Islam in Xinjiang needs to be Sinicised, this is an inevitable trend," regional party chief Ma Xingrui told reporters at a largely scripted briefing on the sidelines of China's annual parliamentary sessions in Beijing.
Rights groups accuse Beijing of widespread abuses of Uyghurs, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority that numbers around 10 million in Xinjiang, including denying Uyghurs full religious freedoms. Beijing vigorously denies any abuses.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has repeatedly called for the "Sinicisation" of religions including Islam, Buddhism and Christianity, urging followers to pledge loyalty to the Communist Party above all else. About two-thirds of mosques in Xinjiang have been damaged or destroyed since 2017, according to an Australian think-tank report.

COMMENT – The Chinese Communist Party is colonizing land that has belonged to Muslim communities for centuries and is waging a comprehensive campaign to eradicate Islamic ethnic groups and others who practice religion.

For the most part, leaders from across the Islamic world don’t mention this at all and often betray the co-religionists to the CCP.

Shameful.

35. US lawmakers urge Blinken to ban travel to China’s Xinjiang

Roseanne Gerin, RFA, March 7, 2024

36. Uyghur Policy Act passes US House

Alex Willemyns, RFA, February 16, 2024

The Bill passed the House 414-6 and moves on to the Senate.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation Thursday that would require the State Department to offer Uyghur language classes to diplomats, place Uyghur speakers in all consulates in China and include Uyghurs in speaking programs in Muslim-majority countries.
The latest version of the Uyghur Policy Act, which has been introduced in past sessions of Congress without success, passed the House 414-6, but still faces a long journey in the Senate to become law.
Rep. Young Kim, a Republican from California, and Rep. Ami Bera, a California Democrat, led the introduction of the bill in the House, but it was also co-sponsored by 104 other House members. Both Kim and Bera praised the strong support in Thursday’s House vote.
“The Uyghur Policy Act equips the U.S. with tools needed to support the basic human rights and distinct identities of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region subject to [China’s] inhumane treatment,” said Kim, who is also the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Indo-Pacific.

37. Xinjiang Abuses Show Need for Robust EU Forced Labor Law

Jim Wormington, Human Rights Watch, February 29, 2024

Over the past year, Human Rights Watch has investigated forced labor in Xinjiang, a region in northwestern China where Chinese government labor transfer programs coerce Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims away from their homes and into jobs in factories and warehouses. Uncovering the products and materials linked to forced labor, from the aluminum in cars to the polysilicon in solar panels, that enter undetected into global supply chains is extremely challenging.
The difficulties around this work underscore why a new European Union law banning imports and exports linked to forced labor needs specific measures to tackle state-imposed forced labor.
The combination of government-led forced labor and broader state repression and surveillance in Xinjiang severely limits access to the region and makes it impossible to safely interview workers. Human Rights Watch investigators instead spent months pouring over thousands of webpages to find evidence of companies’ participation in labor transfers. But Chinese internet censorship is making even this research increasingly difficult.
The European Parliament’s version of the proposed law would empower the European Commission to identify particular economic sectors in specific areas (for example, aluminum from Xinjiang) where there exists a high risk of state-imposed forced labor. Companies under investigation for importing products from these sectors and areas into the European Union would have to demonstrate they were not produced with forced labor.
EU governments have so far resisted the European Parliament’s proposal and included only fleeting references to state-imposed forced labor in their own version of the law. Under that version, regulators would only target individual products for investigation rather than classifying broader categories of products in Xinjiang or other regions as at high risk of forced labor. Given the vast number of products produced with state-imposed forced labor and the difficulty in obtaining information from Xinjiang, this would severely undermine the law’s effectiveness.

COMMENT – I’ve heard a few European colleagues brag that the EU “rules the world” with its regulations or that the EU is a “regulatory superpower.” So why is it so hard for Brussels and Member States to take this regulatory action… especially considering that the United States did it over two years ago.

Industrial Policies and Economic Espionage

38. China Calls Out US for ‘Classic Protectionism’ in Tension Over EVs
Evelyn Yu, Bloomberg, March 4, 2024

39. China central banker sees full toolbox as planners vow to hit GDP goal
Ck Tan and Kenji Kawase, Nikkei Asia, March 6, 2024

40. Once thought inevitable, China overtaking US in GDP now far from certain
Frank Chen, South China Morning Post, March 5, 2024

41. What ‘deep concerns’ were aired as US Chamber of Commerce met Premier Li Qiang?
Kandy Wong, South China Morning Post, March 5, 2024

42. Hong Kong should use its ‘super roles’ to spur development: Beijing official
Willa Wu, South China Morning Post, March 6, 2024

43. China sets economic growth target of around 5% but says it won't be easy
Euronews, March 5, 2024

44. How China Is Churning Out EVs Faster Than Everyone Else
Selina Cheng and Yoko Kubota, Wall Street Journal, March 4, 2024

45. China’s Boom Is Over—Beijing Is Making It Worse
Nathaniel Taplin, Wall Street Journal, March 5, 2024

46. Apple’s iPhone Sales in China Fall as Huawei Gains Market Share
Kimberley Kao, Wall Street Journal, March 5, 2024

47. China Sales of Tesla, Other EV Makers Hit the Skids in February
Ben Otto, Wall Street Journal, March 5, 2024

48. China’s New Economic Agenda, a Lot Like the Old One: Takeaways
Alexandra Stevenson and Chris Buckley, New York Times, March 5, 2024

49. China aims for self-reliance in tech; vows to open manufacturing to foreign investors
Joe Cash and Yelin Mo, Reuters, March 4, 2024

50. Beijing Hints at More Liquidity Support, Makes Surprise Trade-Data Disclosures
Wall Street Journal, March 6, 2024

Cyber & Information Technology

51. US Urges Allies to Squeeze China Further on Chip Technology
Diederik Baazil, Cagan Koc, Mackenzie Hawkins, and Michael Nienaber, Bloomberg, March 6, 2024

52. Alibaba Backs $2.5 Billion AI Firm in Second Big 2024 Deal
Jane Zhang, Bloomberg, March 4, 2024

53. Telcos are barely done rolling out 5G networks — and they're already talking about '5.5G'
Ryan Browne, CNBC, March 3, 2024

54. AMD Hits US Roadblock in Selling AI Chip Tailored for China
Jane Lanhee Lee and Mackenzie Hawkins, Bloomberg, March 4, 2024

55. AI integration in our mobile devices and China's presence: Takeaways from Mobile World Congress 2024
David Walsh, Euronews, March 2, 2024

56. Chinese EVs have entered center stage in US-China tensions
Zeyi Yang, MIT Technology Review, March 6, 2024

Military and Security Threats

57. Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing AI trade secrets while working with Chinese companies
Eric Tucker, Associated Press, March 6, 2024

58. Taiwan Arms Backlog, February 2024 Update: Long Waits for F-16 Upgrade, Guided Bombs
Eric Gomez and Benjamin Giltner, Cato Institute, March 5, 2024

Taiwan faces weapon delivery timelines. The recent delays in arms deliveries to Taiwan are perceived as a strategic issue that needs to be addressed to improve deterrence against potential threats from China.

59. Boeing to pay $51mn US penalty over arms export violations
Claire Bushey, Financial Times, February 29, 2024

60. Europe battles gunpowder shortage to supply shells for Ukraine’s defence against Russia
Agence France-Presse, South China Morning Post, March 2, 2024

61. Fishermen delivering possible spy balloon to FBI in Alaska
Katie Bo Lillis and Evan Perez, CNN, March 1, 2024

62. Chinese National Residing in California Arrested for Theft of Artificial Intelligence-Related Trade Secrets from Google
U.S. Department of Justice, March 6, 2024

63. Western Navies Must Prepare for War on Two Oceans
Admiral Andrew "Woody" Lewis, Krista Viksnins, and Ginger Matchett, CEPA, February 29, 2024

64. Lies and scandal: How two rogue scientists at a high-security lab triggered a national security calamity
Catharine Tunney, CBC, March 2, 2024

65. Imperial College London academics worked with Chinese military-linked institutions
Lucy Fisher and Jamie John, Financial Times, March 4, 2024

66. Philippines summons China diplomat over 'aggressive' actions in South China Sea
Bernard Orr, Liz Lee, and Karen Lema, Reuters, March 5, 2024

67. China’s military capability set to grow faster than its defence budget
Kathrin Hille, Financial Times, March 5, 2024

68. How China’s Aggressive Sea Tactics Look from the Deck of an Opposing Ship
Feliz Solomon, Wall Street Journal, March 6, 2024

One Belt, One Road Strategy

69. China's Belt and Road Initiative is bringing new risks to Europe
Elaine Dezenski, Euronews, February 28, 2024

Opinion Pieces

70. Why You Shouldn’t Trust China’s Growth Data
Greg Ip, Wall Street Journal, March 6, 2024

71. Why Joe Biden Finally Joined TikTok
Makena Kelly, Wired, February 24, 2024

72. China’s excess savings are a danger
Martin Wolf, Financial Times, March 5, 2024

China is the global savings superpower. In the past, in a fast-growing economy with superb investment opportunities, its high savings have been a big asset. But they can also cause huge headaches. Today, with the ending of the property boom, managing these savings has become a challenge. The Chinese government must dare to choose relatively radical remedies.
According to the IMF, China generated 28 per cent of total global savings in 2023. This is only a little less than the 33 per cent share of the US and EU combined. That is quite extraordinary. It also has several implications. One is that if China were an open market economy, its capital markets would be the biggest in the world. Another is that how these savings are managed is likely to be the most important single determinant of global interest rates and the global balance of payments.
I analysed these underlying challenges in a column in September. A recent visit to China confirmed both the significance of this issue and the apparent unwillingness of the government to make decisive shifts in the structure of income and spending. It seems highly likely therefore that China will continue to have an extremely high overall propensity to save. But this is not mainly due to the frugality of Chinese households, as so many assume. Even more important is households’ ultra-low share in national income. In other words, as Michael Pettis of Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management has frequently argued, China’s savings are in large part a distributional issue. That may be why they are hard to reduce and so the savings rate has remained over 40 per cent of gross domestic product.
If demand is to match potential supply in such an economy, domestic investment, plus the current account surplus, must match the desired savings. If they do not, adjustment will work through weak economic activity — that is, a recession or even a depression. This is “secular stagnation”. With savings as high as China’s that is hard to avoid. Doing so required a huge current account surplus prior to the 2008 global financial crisis and, subsequently, China’s debt-fuelled property boom.
The latter is now apparently over. So what next? A natural course would be for the investment rate to fall significantly. It is highly implausible that the economically profitable rate of investment can remain over 40 per cent of GDP in an economy whose potential rate of growth has, at the very least, halved over the past 15 years. That makes no sense. The property boom masked this reality. Now it is here.
…
As Sherlock Holmes said: “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” Given China’s size, stage of development and excessive savings, an essential part of any strategy for macroeconomic stability must be a jump in private and public consumption as shares of GDP. Moreover, given the financial difficulties of local government, this will also mean a bigger role for central government spending.
China needs a new macroeconomic strategy. This is not about another “stimulus”. It is about changing the distribution of income and spending. The leadership does not want to do this. But events will force its hand in the end.

COMMENT – For Xi and his cadres to follow Martin’s advice it would require them to accept the kinds of political instability and reforms that would threaten their hold on power… for that reason, Xi will not make these necessary changes.

73. China Has Thousands of Navalnys, Hidden from the Public
Li Yuan, Newsweek, February 29, 2024

China has no dissident with the kind of public profile that Aleksei A. Navalny had. The government has many critics, but they all disappear from view.
After watching “Navalny,” the documentary about the Russian opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny, a Chinese businesswoman messaged me, “Ren Zhiqiang is China’s Navalny.” She was talking about the retired real estate tycoon who was sentenced to 18 years in prison for criticizing China’s leader, Xi Jinping.
After Mr. Navalny’s tragic death this month, a young dissident living in Germany posted on X, “Teacher Li is closest to the Chinese version of Navalny.” He was referring to the rebel influencer known as Teacher Li, who used social media to share information about protests in China and who now fears for his life.
There are others: Liu Xiaobo, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who died in government custody in 2017, and Xu Zhiyong, the legal scholar who is serving 14 years in prison on charges of subversion.
The sad fact is that there’s no Chinese equivalent of Mr. Navalny because there’s no opposition party in China, and therefore no opposition leader.
It’s not for lack of trying. Many courageous Chinese stood up to the most powerful authoritarian government in the world. Since 2000, the nonprofit humanitarian organization Duihua has recorded the cases of 48,699 political prisoners in China, with 7,371 now in custody. None of them has the type of name recognition among the Chinese public that Mr. Navalny did in Russia.
Under President Vladimir V. Putin, Russia is highly intolerant of dissent. Mr. Putin jails his critics and hunts them down even in exile. In China, Navalny counterparts as high-profile figures could not exist. They would be silenced and jailed long before they could reach the public awareness.
“Can you imagine the PRC giving noted political prisoners the continuing access that Navalny had to public opinion via various direct and indirect methods?” Jerome Cohen, a retired law professor at New York University, wrote on X, referring to China’s full name, the People’s Republic of China.
That was what members of the Chinese dissident community were thinking as they watched the news of Mr. Navalny’s death with grief and horror. His death was tragic and his life heroic. But it was hard for them to process the revelations that he was able to send hundreds of handwritten letters from jail. People wrote to him, paying 40 cents a page, and received scans of his responses. A video link of him behind bars during his last court appearance was released online.
“Despite increasingly harsh conditions, including repeated stints in solitary confinement,” my colleague Anton Troianovski wrote, “he maintained a presence on social media, while members of his team continued to publish investigations into Russia’s corrupt elite from exile.”
None of that would be possible in China. The names of most Chinese political prisoners are censored online. Once arrested, they are never heard from again. No one can visit them except their direct relatives and their lawyers, although that is not guaranteed. China’s political prisoners cannot correspond with the outside world and are left to rot behind bars, even if they are struggling with health problems — exactly how Mr. Liu, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, died from late-stage liver cancer in government custody.

74. Studying in China May Have Gotten Harder for Americans, But We Shouldn’t Stop Trying
Amy E. Gadsden, China File, March 5, 2024

75. Hypersonic Hegemony: Niobium and the Western Hemisphere’s Role in the U.S.-China Power Struggle
Guido L. Torres, Laura Delgado López, Ryan C. Berg, and Henry Ziemer, CSIS, March 4, 2024

76. A Distracted America Still Leads the World
Walter Russell Mead, Wall Street Journal, March 4, 2024

77. China’s military spending is a growth certainty amid rising tensions
Financial Times, March 5, 2024

78. Foreign investors are right to see China as a trade more than a long-term bet
Mohamed El-Erian, Financial Times, March 4, 2024

79. There Are Cracks in the Great Wall of Silence on China
Karishma Vaswani, Bloomberg, March 4, 2024

80. America, take heed — China is winning the diplomacy race
Ryan Neelam, Financial Times, March 5, 2024

81. Apple iPhone China Slump: If Company Has Something Up Its Sleeve, Now’s the Time
Dave Lee, Bloomberg, March 6, 2024

82. Chinasplaining will backfire
Noah Smith, Noahpinion, March 6, 2024

COMMENT - Excellent piece by my fellow substacker, Noah Smith… I recommend subscribing to his page.