China Articles - April 10, 2022
Friends,
This week’s newsletter starts with an analysis from Doublethink Lab, a new Taiwanese organization that focuses on uncovering information operations in the digital space (I recommend following them on Medium). The report details how the Chinese Communist Party has sought to use its various state media outlets and social media platforms to influence public opinion about Ukraine across the wider Chinese-speaking world.
While the PRC Government portrays itself as aloof to the conflict, state-controlled media outlets and social media platforms aggressively parrot and amplify Russian state media narratives about the ‘denazification’ of Ukraine, as well as blaming the outbreak of hostilities on NATO and the United States.
In a related piece, China Digital Times published leaked censorship directives from early March 2022 by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) on how social media platforms must guide content pertaining to Ukraine (#7). CAC also sought to erase any content that reported on how much it cost to put on the Beijing Winter Olympics and on the banning of Russian and Belorussian athletes from the Beijing Paralympic Games.
Over the past week, the U.S. Justice Department successfully prosecuted three cases from the now ended ‘China Initiative’ (here, here, and here). Two of the cases involved individuals committing economic espionage on behalf of the PRC government and the third case involved a Kansas University researcher that committed wire fraud and made false statements to hide his employment with a PRC university while working on U.S. government funded research at KU. That makes 16 convictions under the ‘China Initiative’ since the start of the Biden Administration.
Thanks for reading!
Matt
MUST READ
1. Analysis: How Ukraine has been Nazifized in Chinese Information Space?
Jerry Yu, Doublethink Lab, March 31, 2022
Russian and Chinese state media and state-linked social media worked in tandem to influence public opinion in China, Taiwan and the Chinese diaspora in favour of the invasion of Ukraine on denazification grounds, analysis from Taiwan-based civil society organization Doublethink Lab (DTL) shows.
The analysis highlights the tug-of-war for influence across the Chinese diaspora and the ability of Chinese state media to shape public opinion even as the CCP government refrains from taking an official line.
Chinese-language Russian state media accounts pushed the denazification angle prior to the invasion, before Chinese state media (Global Times/CGTN etc.) picked up President Putin’s anti-NATO expansion reasoning upon the outbreak of hostilities, and later went on to focus on the denazification angle themselves, citing Russian government officials’ speeches and statements. Chinese and Russia state media have had cooperation agreements in place since 2015.
Chinese state-linked media blogs encouraged a sense of solidarity between Russia and China on the basis of mutual suffering at the hands of “foreign forces interfering in internal affairs” and foreign-funded Nazism.
Their efforts focus on a 2019 Facebook image picked up by Russian media (News Front/Rusvesna) of a Ukrainian veteran who participated in the anti-extradition march in Hong Kong. In 2019, Russian and Chinese state-linked media (Global Times/Guancha) jointly leveraged the image to push a false narrative suggesting that the West had funded Ukraine’s “Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion” to take part in the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests (against legal amendments that would allow criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China).
Since Feb. 26, when Russia came under Western economic sanctions and after Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi spoke with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, Weibo accounts including the influential state-linked Guancha began recycling the 2019 Facebook image, supported by state-linked blogs reiterating the false claim that the U.S. funded the Ukrainian army’s neo-Nazi “Azov Battalion” to participate in the Hong Kong anti-extradition demonstrations.
By reactivating this nugget of disinformation, the topics of Ukraine, Nazism and foreign interference became linked in Chinese online communities and discourse, driving public support for Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
False narratives around Ukrainian support for the far-right are also being pushed on Facebook and YouTube in Taiwan, with pro-PRC politician Hou Han-ting and pro-China media personality Huang Chih-Hsien publishing false content related to the rise of Nazism in Ukraine.
The speed with which the topic was seeded into the Chinese information environment shows the ease with which Sino-Russian state media cooperation can sow disinformation by citing each other as sources and expanding on each other’s angles.
DTL keyword analysis across Weibo, Facebook and Twitter show how the content of accusing Ukraine of support for Nazism and reporting links between the “Azov Battalion” and the Hong Kong protest movement gained traction at different rates and with differing emphasis across the various platforms, with Weibo strongly more focused on the false Azov Battalion — HK link than Twitter or FB, where discussion of “Nazis” is much more frequent. Ultimately, even as Russian officials are banned on Western social media platforms, Chinese-linked media discourse continues to spread their propaganda to the Chinese diaspora, tarnishing Ukraine’s image among Chinese internet users.
2. Chinese state media are using H-1B visas to bypass US journalist visa restrictions
Ananya Bhattacharya, Quartz, April 6, 2022
The H-1B visa is a nonimmigrant visa that allows a highly-skilled professional to live and work in the US for up to six years. The majority of the applicants and recipients of the visa are tech workers. Even newsrooms in the US rarely sponsor foreigners for this visa. But media outlets with Chinese state ties have been taking ample advantage of it—exploiting it, even.
While countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia also use this route, “China leads the way by a large margin, with H-1B visa approvals for state-run outlets such as CCTV, People’s Daily, China Daily and Xinhua,” according to a March 24 Axios report analysis H-1B data going back at least a decade.
Unlike the I journalist visa, which limits work to newsgathering and restricts time in the county, the H-1B is valid for three years, is renewable, and holders can eventually be sponsored for legal residency. But the problem is this: Instead of bringing workers over to plug gaps in America’s labor force to make the US economy more competitive—the primary intention of the H-1B program since it was founded in 1990—foreign state media is using it to boost activities on US turf that could qualify as influence operations.
3. Chinese Executives Sell at the Right Time, Avoiding Billions in Losses
Liz Hoffman and Tom McGinty, Wall Street Journal, April 5, 2022
A review of regulatory filings finds that insiders at Chinese companies sold large stock holdings just before sharp declines
Chinese corporate insiders have avoided billions of dollars in losses by making well-timed share sales over the past several years, according to an academic analysis of securities filings.
Insiders at companies based in China but listed on a U.S. exchange avoided at least $10 billion in losses on trades made between 2016 and mid-2021 by selling stock ahead of significant price declines, the researchers found. The Wall Street Journal reviewed the data and methodology in their paper.
One year after insiders at U.S.-listed Chinese companies sold big slugs of stock, those share prices were 21% lower on average, weighting for the size of the trade and adjusting for broader market moves. That means sellers avoided losses borne by other investors.
4. EU’s Top Envoy Calls Summit with China’s Xi a ‘Deaf Dialog’
Bloomberg, April 5, 2022
Josep Borrell says Beijing didn’t want to discuss Ukraine war
China has faced pressure from U.S., EU to condemn Russia
The European Union’s foreign policy chief described a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping as a “deaf dialog,” casting doubt on how much cooperation the Asian nation will offer to end the war in Ukraine.
“China wanted to set aside our difference on Ukraine,” said Josep Borrell, who accompanied European leaders in talks with Xi last week. “They didn’t want to talk about Ukraine. They didn’t want to talk about human rights and other issues, and instead focused on the positive things.”
Katherine Eban, Vanity Fair, March 31, 2022
Chasing scientific renown, grant dollars, and approval from Dr. Anthony Fauci, Peter Daszak transformed the environmental nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance into a government-funded sponsor of risky, cutting-edge virus research in both the U.S. and Wuhan, China. Drawing on more than 100,000 leaked documents, a V.F. investigation shows how an organization dedicated to preventing the next pandemic found itself suspected of helping start one.
AUTHORITARIANISM
6. For the rising stars of Taiwanese political satire, China is a joke
Vic Chiang and Christian Shepherd, Washington Post, April 6, 2022
Cindy Carter, China Digital Times, March 18, 2022
The following censorship instructions, issued to PRC State Media by government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online.
Remarks: March 1, 2022 directive
Content: Instructions (related to the situation in Ukraine)
Regarding the situation in Ukraine, please strictly guide content and work to bring down the overall temperature. Please strictly implement the following work requirements:
1. Strengthen list management. Without exception, existing hashtags started by individuals, self-published media, and commercial platforms must not be included in trending topics, and new hashtags are strictly prohibited. Apart from local media hashtags that feature objective reporting on official government statements or on measures such as the evacuation of Chinese citizens living overseas, any other local media hashtags should gradually move down and drop off the lists, and the addition of new hashtags on lists should be controlled.
2. All individual and self-published media live streams from the battlefield are suspended, without exception.
3. Apart from core media [i.e. the core state-media outlets such as Xinhua, CCTV, People’s Daily etc], all news topics started by commercial websites and self-published media will be dissolved, without exception, and collected content citing foreign media reports will be suppressed and dealt with.
4. It is forbidden to start any Internet polling or new discussions related to this topic, and existing voting topics will be deleted, dissolved or suppressed. All networks are requested to fulfill their main responsibilities and carry out stringent vetting in advance. Our office will also step up random inspections, and deal strictly and on a case-by-case basis with platforms that exhibit inadequate implementation. (March 3, 2022)
8. Bristling Against the West, China Rallies Domestic Sympathy for Russia
Chris Buckley, New York Times, April 4, 2022
9. Shanghai Woman’s 16-Hour Bus Ride Into Quarantine: ‘My Only Wish is to Leave This Place Alive’
Stella Yifan Xie, Wall Street Journal, April 5, 2022
Ten days after a technology worker gets ‘abnormal’ Covid test result, she is sent on a long trip to one of Shanghai’s mass quarantine facilities
10. The Muddled Case Against Xi Jinping’s Third Term
Ling Li, London School of Economics, March 31, 2022
Many commentators believe that Xi Jinping violated a cornerstone of the Party’s “succession norm” by removing term limits for the PRC Chairman in 2018. Despite its popularity, this belief is ill-founded.
The day when the head of the Party truly abdicates his entitlement to choose his own successor will be the day when the Party is ready to surrender itself to constitutional rule, but for now this is a very distant prospect.
Deng Xiaoping’s invention of choosing two successors down the line is a practice that cannot be expected to actually take hold, because it does not only deprive the privilege of all future top Party leaders to pick their own immediate successors, which is an integral part of the power of any ruling autocrat, but would also inevitably create a situation that makes the best incubator for power struggles.
Speculation about Xi Jinping’s succession thickens as we approach the 20th National Party Congress this autumn, where a leadership reshuffle is scheduled to take place. Before we can proceed to predict its possible outcomes with any degree of confidence, there are two a priori assumptions that have distracted current discussions and need to be first re-examined. One such issue concerns the term limit of the General Party Secretary (GPS) of the Chinese Communist Party (the Party), and the other concerns the normative quality of the so-called “succession norms” developed under Deng Xiaoping.
11. A final victory for China’s propaganda chiefs
The Economist, April 2, 2022
On a first posting to China, two decades ago, Chaguan covered a disaster that was as grim as it was revealing: an explosion that killed 38 children at a school where pupils were assembling fireworks to pay their fees. Reporting that tragedy in March 2001 was made possible by the courage of bereaved parents in Fanglin, a remote village in the southern province of Jiangxi. To alert national leaders to their plight they accepted interviews and identified local officials and teachers who forced children as young as eight to fit fuses to firecrackers in classrooms. Exposing this crime took bravery by Chinese journalists, too, notably from risk-taking, commercially driven outlets that enjoyed a golden age in the 1990s and early 2000s, protected by well-placed patrons and by the profits that their livelier content generated. “I have to go, a China Youth Daily reporter is here,” a grieving mother said during a telephone interview, naming one of the feistier newspapers of that time. Locals smuggled Chinese journalists into their village, then hid them from thugs sent to beat them. As for Chaguan, he was detained for “illegal reporting” at a police roadblock outside Fanglin.
An epilogue followed that would be unthinkable now. Days after the blast China’s prime minister, Zhu Rongji, held his annual press conference in Beijing, carried live on television. A Western reporter asked if Mr Zhu stood by his earlier statement blaming the disaster on explosives set off by a deranged villager. Mr Zhu, a gruff economic reformer, acknowledged that foreign and Hong Kong journalists doubted this account. Therefore, he had sent new investigators in plain clothes to Jiangxi: a tacit admission that foreigners might be more reliable than his own bureaucracy. They found that schoolchildren had made fireworks two years previously, but this practice ended before the blast, he said. Declining further debate with “sceptical journalists”, foreign or Chinese, Mr Zhu promised that children would be better protected in future. Soon afterwards Jiangxi’s governor and police chief lost their jobs.
12. In Hong Kong, China’s Covid Aid Gets the Cold Shoulder
Joy Dong and Austin Ramzy, New York Times, March 31, 2022
13. China decries UK judges quitting HK court, London says democracy at stake
Farah Master and Kristy Needham, Reuters, March 31, 2022
14. Six UK judges defy calls to leave Hong Kong court
Jonathan Ames, Times of London, April 1, 2022
15. EU leaders urged to be tough on China if it backs Russia in Ukraine
Jennifer Rankin and Vincent Ni, The Guardian, March 31, 2022
16. China’s Political Discourse February 2022: The Chained Woman
Bill Bishop, China Media Project, April 1, 2022
17. Children and the Elderly Suffer Under Shanghai’s Lockdown
Joseph Bouwer, China Digital Times, April 4, 2022
This isn’t a problem of 'lack of foresight,' it’s a problem of 'simply not caring.' As long as there is no public outcry, they don’t give a damn. This is the 'new normal.'" — Chinese citizen comment about viral videos showing infants and toddlers in quarantine and separated from their parents
18. Independent Reporting on Mu5735 Disaster Blocked, Criticized, and Censored
Joseph Bouwer, China Digital Times, March 31, 2022
19. Close ties allow Russian propaganda to spread swiftly through China, report claims
Helen Davidson, The Guardian, March 31, 2022
A cyber monitoring group says Chinese sources are amplifying disinformation about Ukrainian ‘nazism’
20. John Lee, Former Policeman, Poised to Be Hong Kong’s Next Top Official
Elaine Yu and Dan Strumpf, Wall Street Journal, April 6, 2022
A former policeman and government security chief is poised to become Hong Kong’s next top official after declaring his intention to run for the job, a succession that would signal Beijing plans no letup in its national security crackdown in the city.
John Lee, currently the city’s No. 2 official, is the only serious candidate to so far throw his hat into the ring for the contest, which is decided by an election committee of around 1,500 mostly Beijing loyalists and closely orchestrated by China’s central government. If chosen, he would succeed Carrie Lam, who said Monday she would step down June 30 after a five-year term, her tenure marked by mass protests and a recent Covid-19 surge that killed thousands of elderly people.
21. Hard-liner Who Led Crackdown on Protests Is Favorite to Run Hong Kong
Austin Ramzy, New York Times, April 6, 2022
ENVIRONMENTAL HARMS
22. China's Big Oil to pour cash into boosting domestic output
Kenji Kawase, Nikkei Asia, April 6, 2022
China's big three state-owned oil and gas companies are raising their capital investment budgets this year to the highest level seen since 2014 amid an energy security push from Beijing to boost domestic production.
PetroChina, Sinopec and CNOOC -- the core listed units of conglomerates China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC), China Petroleum and Chemical, and China National Offshore Oil Corp. -- are set to spend 530 billion to 540 billion yuan ($83.33 billion to $84.91 billion) on capital works this year, an increase of up to 6.3% from 2021.
In his annual address to the National People's Congress last month, Premier Li Keqiang put "enhancing domestic resource production capabilities and expediting exploration and production of oil, gas, and minerals" as a key element of the government's "stability" agenda for the year. He barely mentioned the sector in his 2021 speech.
The National Energy Agency followed up last week by publicly releasing guidance it had sent earlier to local governments and state energy companies directing them to set "safeguarding secure and stable energy supply as the top mission by strengthening domestic energy production capabilities and conscientiously holding the rice bowl of energy firmly in our own hands."
Environmental Justice Foundation, April 2022
Driven by the depletion of fish populations in its own national waters and its role as a key processing and exporting state, the Government of the People's Republic of China has supported the rapid expansion of the scale and technological capacity of its distant water fishing fleet, i.e. vessels operating beyond its exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Today, China has by far the largest of such fleets, operating across the globe in both areas beyond national jurisdiction and in the EEZs of coastal states.
The burgeoning body of research that has explored the extent and behaviours of the Chinese distant-water fleet (CDWF) has unveiled the widespread, and harmful, economic, environmental and human consequences linked to overcapacity, high instances of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, destructive practises such as bottom trawling and the use of forced, bonded and slave labour and trafficked crew, alongside the widespread abuse of migrant crewmembers.
24. Some Chinese companies pollute more than entire nations. Can a new rule change the game?
Lili Pike, Grid, March 31, 2022
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE AND COERCION
25. UK ministers quietly approve Chinese microchip factory takeover
Eleni Courea, Politico, April 1, 2022
26. China Strengthens Ties with Global South to Counter Western Pressure Over Ukraine
Oliver Young, China Digital Times, March 30, 2022
27. Jesus College, Cambridge, took ‘high risk’ China cash
George Greenwood, Times of London, April 4, 2022
HUMAN RIGHTS AND RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
28. Execution by organ procurement: Breaching the dead donor rule in China
Matthew Robertson and Jacob Lavee, American Journal of Transplantation, April 4, 2022
The dead donor rule is fundamental to transplant ethics. The rule states that organ procurement must not commence until the donor is both dead and formally pronounced so, and by the same token, that procurement of organs must not cause the death of the donor. In a separate area of medical practice, there has been intense controversy around the participation of physicians in the execution of capital prisoners. These two apparently disparate topics converge in a unique case: the intimate involvement of transplant surgeons in China in the execution of prisoners via the procurement of organs. We use computational text analysis to conduct a forensic review of 2838 papers drawn from a dataset of 124 770 Chinese-language transplant publications.
Our algorithm searched for evidence of problematic declarations of brain death during organ procurement. We find evidence in 71 of these reports, spread nationwide, that brain death could not have properly been declared. In these cases, the removal of the heart during organ procurement must have been the proximate cause of the donor's death. Because these organ donors could only have been prisoners, our findings strongly suggest that physicians in the People's Republic of China have participated in executions by organ removal.
29. Repression in Tibet Remains Shrouded in Opacity
Joseph Brouwer, China Digital Times, March 25, 2022
30. China: Treatment for Non-Covid Illnesses Denied
Human Rights Watch, April 6, 2022
INDUSTRIAL POLICIES AND ECONOMIC ESPIONAGE
31. Chinese National Sentenced for Economic Espionage Conspiracy
U.S. Department of Justice, April 7, 2022
This marks 16 successful prosecutions and convictions since the start of the Biden Administration under the ‘China Initiative.’
32. China’s ‘Two Sessions’ paper over cracks in a troubled economy
George Magnus, Council on Geostrategy, April 6, 2022
33. The 800-Pound Gorilla Affecting Your Supply Chain
Dan Harris, China Law Blog, March 31, 2022
Hilary Clarke, South China Morning Post, April 5, 2022
35. BlackRock Among Investors to Pare Losing China Property Bets
Lorretta Chen, Bloomberg, April 5, 2022
The biggest investors in China’s junk property bonds reduced their exposure for the first time in months, a turning point after they previously doubled down through distress and default risks.
Institutional investors which publicly file their holdings trimmed exposure in March after adding $3.7 billion of dollar bonds in par value terms between early November and the end of February, according to Bloomberg data. BlackRock Inc. cut $370 million last month to bring the value of its holdings - if calculated at par - to just under $5 billion. A BlackRock spokesperson declined to comment on company holdings.
36. The great medicines migration: How China controls key drug supplies
Nikkei Asia, April 6, 2022
37. Former BIS official: China will violate export controls on Russia. Can the U.S. catch it?
Inside Trade, April 6, 2022
China will likely violate export controls the Biden administration has levied on Moscow by exporting goods with U.S. content or made with U.S. technology to Russia, according to a former acting head of the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, but the U.S. faces significant obstacles to enforcing those new controls.
Nazak Nikakhtar served as the assistant secretary for industry and analysis at Commerce’s International Trade Administration and performed the non-exclusive duties of the under secretary of Commerce for industry and security, the top spot at BIS, in the absence of a Senate-confirmed official.
CYBER AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
38. WeChat “Bug” Turns Out to be Obscure Insult for Xi Jinping
Joseph Brouwer, China Digital Times, March 30, 2022
A group of students under the impression they had discovered a WeChat “bug” that hides the phrase “200 jin of dumplings” (roughly 220 pounds) had in fact stumbled upon an obscure insult for Xi Jinping that triggers automatic censorship.
39. China’s ‘Little Nvidia’ Has a Big Secret: Its Homegrown AI Chip Isn’t
Juro Osawa and Stephen Nellis, The Information, April 5, 2022
40. WAY BACK MACHINE – UK urged to stop China taking control of Imagination Tech: lawmaker
Guy Faulconbridge, Reuters, April 14, 2020
MILITARY AND SECURITY THREATS
41. China Signs Deal with Cambodia Army, Rebuffing U.S. Warnings
Bloomberg, March 31, 2022
42. In the Shadow of Warships: How foreign companies help modernize China’s navy
Matthew Funaiole, Brian Hart and Joseph Bermudez, CSIS,
The global shipping industry is enjoying record profits, and merchant fleets are growing quickly to meet rising demand. Many of the newest hulls under construction will be laid down in China, but Chinese shipbuilders produce more than just container ships and tankers to ferry trade. They also build warships.
New research by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) shows that the shipyards at the heart of modernizing the Chinese navy also attract billions of dollars of revenue and technology transfers from companies around the world. China’s opaque business ecosystem offers limited transparency into the flow of capital within its shipbuilding industry, but available evidence indicates that profits from foreign orders likely lower the costs of upgrading China’s navy.
43. U.S. Sees Rising Risk in ‘Breathtaking’ China Nuclear Expansion
Roxana Tiron, Bloomberg, April 4, 2022
ONE BELT, ONE ROAD STRATEGY
44. In Nepal, the promises of the Belt and Road Initiative are crumbling
Bollyinside, April 7, 2022
China’s illusory pledges to build infrastructure in Nepal under the ‘Belt and Road Initiatives (BRI)’ are unravelling. Nepal jeopardised its traditional links with India in exchange for Chinese aid in several spheres. Nepal joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2017, with the goal of becoming a middle-income country by 2030.
After five years, though, the promises are crumbling one by one. Improving the Himalayan nation’s institutional ability to support its transformation from a land-locked to a ‘land-linked’ state was among the unnecessary promises. Furthermore, due to ever-increasing Chinese preconditions for commencing major infrastructure projects, Beijing’s exclusive purpose in advancing large loans to Nepal is becoming evident.
OPINION PIECES
45. Beijing Gains from the Ukraine Invasion
Dan Blumenthal, Wall Street Journal, March 27, 2022
Non-Western countries hedge their bets, giving confirmation to Chinese geopolitical assumptions.
Conventional wisdom has it that Beijing miscalculated by supporting Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine war. Xi Jinping’s partner faces both unexpectedly fierce resistance from the Ukrainian military and surprisingly strong Western punishment. Some in Washington expect China to attempt to extricate itself by brokering a peace deal. This is unlikely to happen. In many ways China has benefitted from the conflict, as Russia tests the international system with disappointing results for the West.
True, Beijing is taken aback by Russian military failures. The war will surely lead Mr. Xi to question his military’s ability to attack Taiwan. Yet Mr. Xi has long heralded a new era in international relations that overturns the U.S.-made world order. Mr. Putin signed on to this agenda in the Chinese-Russian Joint Statement of Feb. 4. From Beijing’s perspective, a new international politics is emerging.
Far from backing away from an anti-Western position, top Chinese diplomats are pressing their case. Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng have made statements since the invasion blaming the U.S. for not considering Russia’s security concerns and denouncing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s eastward expansion. In China’s telling, the world should have sympathy for Ukraine not because it was attacked by Russia, but because it is the victim of a reckless U.S. bid to maintain geopolitical dominance.
46. Watching China in Europe - April 2022
Noah Barkin, German Marshall Fund, April 6, 2022
47. The Chinese takeover of Newport Wafer Fab must be stopped
Tom Tugendhat, Times of London, April 5, 2022
48. War-Gaming Taiwan: When Losing to China Is Winning
Jeremy Sepinsky and Sebastian Bae, Foreign Policy, April 3, 2022
49. The Times view on Hong Kong’s highest court: Denial of Justice
Times of London, March 30, 2022
All British judges remaining on the territory’s bench should resign
50. The West’s World War II Moment
Tom McTague, The Atlantic, April 4, 2022
51. Understanding China: The study of China and Mandarin in UK schools and universities
Michael Natzler, Higher Education Policy Institute, March 31, 2022
52. Opposing China Means Defeating Russia
Hal Brands, Foreign Policy, April 5, 2022
Moscow’s war isn’t a distraction. It’s part and parcel of the threat posed by Beijing.
53. Russia’s Military Troubles in Ukraine Could Be America’s in the Pacific
Seth Cropsey, Wall Street Journal, April 6, 2022
54. Don’t underestimate Xi Jinping’s bond with Vladimir Putin
The Economist, April 9, 2022
55. China: Between the National People’s Congress and the Party Congress
Charles Parton, Council on Geostrategy, April 5, 2022