China Articles - July 25, 2021
Friends,
Below is this week’s installment of articles and reports on the malign activities of the Chinese Communist Party.
Thanks for reading!
Matt
MUST READ
1. VIDEO – Japan: The Legacy Of Japan's Longest Serving Prime Minister
H.R. McMaster, Shinzō Abe, Hoover Institution, July 21, 2021
Former U.S. National Security Advisor, H.R. McMaster interviews Shinzo Abe, former Prime Minister of Japan, on how his government led the world in understanding the challenges posed by the Chinese Communist Party and what he did to organize democracies to compete with Beijing.
2. What Beijing wants to tell the rest of the world
Vijay Gokhale, Indian Express, July 19, 2021
An OpEd in Indian Express by India’s former Foreign Secretary and China expert, Vijay Gokhale. He comments on a recent piece by two of the CCP’s leading foreign policy experts that Foreign Affairs published last month.
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Yan Xuetong and Wang Jisi, considered to be two of the high priests of the Chinese foreign policy community, have written recent pieces in the Foreign Affairs. It is no coincidence these were timed to dovetail with Xi Jinping’s speech for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC), on July 1, 2021. Their task is to interpret for the outside world what Xi Jinping means when he says that “the Chinese people have stood up and the era of suffering bullying has gone, never to return.” Given the elevated status of these two gentlemen, it is well worth reading their pieces in full.
Wang and Yan start by acknowledging that recent changes in US policy mean that relations are unlikely to grow any less tense or competitive. Wang holds America responsible for this adversarial environment. According to him, the US-China relationship has always revolved around two ideas: The idea that the US will respect and not de-stabilise China’s internal order and the idea that the Chinese will not intentionally weaken the US-led international order. This implicit understanding, Wang holds, is now unravelling and the Americans are to blame. Wang wants us to believe that this situation has come to pass because the US is seeking a regime change. China, according to both, is not to blame in any way, and is simply responding to American provocation. Wang’s advice to Washington is to return to the earlier implicit consensus.
Both scholars wish to persuade readers (and nations) that if this is not the case, then unbridled competition can only end one way — badly for America. America is plagued by political dysfunction, socio-economic inequality, ethnic and racial divisions and economic stagnation. Wang, in particular, stretches the argument by describing gun violence and urban unrest in America as “a degree of chaos and violence without parallel in China” and by drawing comparisons between the political chaos of the 2020 presidential election “especially compared with the order and predictability of the Chinese system.” He says that Washington must accept that “CPC enjoys immense popularity among the Chinese people; its grip on power is unshakeable.” The strained effort almost looks like a justification to the Chinese people about the benefits and resilience of the Communist dictatorship.
Yan uses US “ill-intention” towards China to justify the “paradigm shift” to a more assertive foreign policy. For over a decade, China has been attacking American unipolarity and the “Cold-War type alliance”. The new challenge for Beijing is how to be seen to be championing the cause of multipolarity while actually striving for a duopoly with the US or, as Yan cleverly phrases it, “a multipolar order with US-Chinese relations at its core.” To build a justification for these contradictory objectives, Yan advances several arguments. He refers to China’s “dual identity”, claiming that there is no contradiction between China seeking global co-hegemony and, at the same time, continuing to be a “developing country”, as a demonstration of its geo-political alignment. Yan also talks up “inclusive multilateralism”, which is apparently what Beijing’s frenzied efforts at building plurilateral platforms, including in South Asia, are all about. Is this not the “alliance-building” that China accuses America of? Apparently not, because America is engaged in “exclusive multilateralism”. The rather specious argument that Yan makes to differentiate between the two is that China’s coalitions are open and non-threatening but the American ones are “issue-based coalitions in opposition to China.”
In case the rest of the world is still confused about what China might be doing differently from America, Yan helpfully adds that America exports its value system (democracy) as part of its foreign policy, while China does not. According to Yan, that is because China is a developing country with “Chinese characteristics”, which, somehow, implies that its political system and governance model cannot merely be exported to other countries. The argument is unconvincing when President Xi has, on more than one occasion, referred to the Chinese model as an alternative for developing countries who wish to be independent.
Their main message to the Americans is to give up on pressuring China to change its political system as this will be futile, and to return to accommodating the Chinese Communist Party as a legitimate global player. The Chinese message to the rest is to bend to China’s inevitable hegemony. At the conclusion of both essays, readers might be left wondering why China wants to return to the old consensus when China’s rise and American decline are both assured. Is it because they still need a few years more of co-habitation before they have the power to topple America from its global perch? Or, is it the deep sense of vulnerability that the party feels despite the claim that time and momentum are on China’s side? How does one explain the stepped-up campaigns for “political education” among cadres and the restrictions on “politically incorrect” information its citizens can access if, according to Wang, the leadership is immensely popular?
From India’s perspective, three points might deserve attention. First, the statement that there is a paradigm shift in post-Covid Chinese foreign policy. Second, Yan’s forthright statement that Beijing views America’s so-called “issue-based coalitions” (he presumably includes the Quad) as the most serious external threat to its political security and the biggest obstacle to national rejuvenation. Finally, that China is still offering accommodation if Washington just respects Beijing’s internal order and acknowledges China’s regional dominance.
3. China’s vaccine profiteering at the U.N. is being funded by U.S. taxpayers
Josh Rogin, Washington Post, July 15, 2021
4. Joe Biden is determined that China should not displace America
The Economist, July 17, 2021
5. What America Owes the Uyghurs
Nury Turkel and Beth Van Schaack, Foreign Affairs, July 16, 2021
There is a word for what is happening in the Xinjiang region of China: genocide. Chinese authorities have rounded up millions of Uyghurs and other minorities as part of their campaign of persecution and cultural eradication. Former detainees and prisoners report that they have suffered torture, rape, forced labor, and involuntary abortion and sterilization in state-run facilities. At least 800,000 children have been separated from their families.
The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden is on record declaring that the Chinese government’s actions amount to genocide. Democrats and Republicans in both houses of Congress have endorsed this horrifying conclusion, as did the Trump administration. As a party to the Genocide Convention, the United States now has a legal and moral obligation to try to end these mass atrocities. The Biden administration has already made some important progress. It mobilized its allies to impose joint targeted sanctions on perpetrators in March, then secured an unprecedented commitment from the G-7 to address Uyghur forced labor in global supply chains in June. Yet more must be done.
Given China’s global economic and political influence, it is easy to assume that there are few effective levers to influence its handling of human rights issues. But there are in fact many tools at the Biden administration’s disposal that will impose real costs on the perpetrators and enablers of these atrocities. Taken together, these steps would pressure Beijing to reverse course, offer humanitarian assistance to the Uyghur people, and ensure that American companies are not complicit in the abuses underway. These measures would also confirm Biden’s pledge to place human rights at the center of his foreign policy and send a powerful message that the United States will not tolerate efforts to wipe out an entire ethnoreligious group.
Alex Rubin, Alan Omar Loera Martinez, Jake Dow and Anna Puglisi, Center for Security and Emerging Technology, July 22, 2021
Authoritarianism
7. China denounces the W.H.O.’s call for another look at the Wuhan lab as ‘shocking’ and ‘arrogant.’
Chris Buckley, New York Times, July 22, 2021
Chinese officials said on Thursday that they were shocked and offended by a World Health Organization proposal to further investigate whether the coronavirus emerged from a lab in Wuhan, exposing a widening rift over the inquiry into the origins of the pandemic.
Senior Chinese health and science officials pushed back vigorously against the idea of opening the Wuhan Institute of Virology to renewed investigation after the W.H.O. director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, laid out plans to examine laboratories in the central city of Wuhan, where the first cases of Covid-19 appeared in late 2019.
Zeng Yixin, the vice minister of the Chinese National Health Commission, said at a news conference in Beijing that he was “extremely shocked” at the W.H.O. plan to renew attention on the possibility that the virus had leaked from a Wuhan lab.
“I could feel that this plan revealed a lack of respect for common sense and an arrogant attitude toward science,” Mr. Zeng said. “We can’t possibly accept such a plan for investigating the origins.”
A joint investigation by the W.H.O. and China found that said it was “extremely unlikely” that the coronavirus escaped from a Wuhan lab, according to a report released in March. Many scientists say that the virus most likely jumped from animals to people through natural spillover in a market or a similar setting.
But some scientists have said that the initial inquiry was premature in dismissing the lab leak idea. The United States and other governments have pressed China to share more information, especially from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
8. Five arrested in Hong Kong for sedition over children’s book about sheep
The Guardian, July 22, 2021
Five members of a Hong Kong union behind a series of children’s books about sheep trying to hold back wolves from their village have been arrested for sedition.
The arrests by the new national security police unit, which is spearheading a sweeping crackdown on dissent, are the latest action against pro-democracy activists since huge and often violent protests convulsed the city two years ago.
Police said on Thursday that the two men and three women aged between 25 and 28 had “conspired to publish, distribute, exhibit or copy seditious publications”.
The group was attempting to stir up “the public’s – and especially young children’s – hatred towards Hong Kong’s government and judiciary and to incite violence and illegal acts,” police said in their statement.
9. Hong Kong police arrest former Apple Daily senior editor
Zen Soo, Associated Press, July 21, 2021
10. Hong Kong Broadcaster Warned Against Implying Taiwan Is Country
Iain Marlow, Bloomberg, July 20, 2021
Staff at Hong Kong’s public broadcaster have been told to avoid “inappropriate terminology” that would imply Taiwan is a sovereign state as the Asian financial hub continues to try to curb dissent.
In a circular distributed to staff urging a “high degree of caution” on Taiwan, journalists at Radio Television Hong Kong were told to avoid calling President Tsai Ing-wen “Taiwan’s president” and not to call her administration a “government,” RTHK reported on Wednesday. Instead, RTHK staff were to use the terms “Taiwan’s leader” and “Taiwan authorities.”
11. Self-censorship hits Hong Kong book fair in wake of national security law
The Guardian, July 15, 2021
12. Pandemic, Penalties Aside, Bribes Go on at China Hospitals
U.S. News and World Report, July 20, 2021
13. Head of China’s aerospace investment firm arrested over alleged assault on scientists
William Zheng, South China Morning Post, July 20, 2021
14. Lhasa building boom heightens divisions in Tibet
Helen Roxburgh, Hong Kong Free Press, July 18, 2021
Environmental Harms
15. How Serbia Became China’s Dirty-Energy Dumping Ground
Vuk Vuksanovic, Foreign Policy, July 16, 2021
Belgrade is vital to Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. But as China takes over old industrial sites, Serbian citizens are suffering the environmental consequences.
Back in late 2015, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, then prime minister, was a guest at the national TV broadcaster, RTS. When asked by the host Olivera Jovicevic why the Chinese are interested in investing in Serbia, Vucic replied in his typically forceful fashion: “It is because they have their interests. It is because they have to shut down part of their forge factories and part of their steel mills. I guess it is because of clean air, of which I do not have enough knowledge, to be honest with you. And why should I be concerned about that?”
Six years later, these words have special weight. Serbia, a major link in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, is importing environmentally damaging economic projects from China while also embracing the Chinese model of politics in which the elite sacrifices environmental safety and public health for the sake of economic growth and to stay in power.
The story began in China back in 1978, when Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping decided to open China up to the global capitalist market. Deng’s economic reforms enabled China 40 years later to become the world’s second-largest economy and pull large swaths of its population out of poverty. However, this economic transformation that prioritized rapid industrialization over environmental security came at a heavy price in terms of environmental degradation and public health.
16. China’s new carbon market isn’t designed to fix climate change
Tim McDonnell, Quartz, July 19, 2021
17. China's port city Qingdao suffers worst algae infestation
Muyu Xu and Shivani Singh, Reuters, July 20, 2021
Foreign Interference and Coercion
18. French cybersecurity agency warns of China-linked APT31 attacks on French organizations
Leigh Thomas and Dominique Vidalon, Reuters, July 21, 2021
French cyber-security watchdog ANSSI warned on Wednesday of what it said were ongoing attacks against a large number of French organizations led by the China-linked APT31 hacking group.
“ANSSI is currently handling a large intrusion campaign impacting numerous French entities. Attacks are still ongoing and are led by an intrusion set publicly referred as APT31,” ANSSI said in an alert.
“It appears from our investigations that the threat actor uses a network of compromised home routers as operational relay boxes in order to perform stealth reconnaissance as well as attacks,” it added.
19. China is targeting me, says Iain Duncan Smith
Catherine Philp, Times of London, July 21, 2021
Xinmei Shen and Masha Borak, South China Morning Post, July 21, 2021
21. Chinese hackers stole Mekong data from Cambodian foreign ministry – sources
Prak Chan Thul and James Pearson, Reuters, July 22, 2021
Buried in a long U.S. indictment accusing China of a global cyberespionage campaign was a curious detail: Among the governments targeted by Chinese hackers was Cambodia, one of Beijing’s most loyal Asian allies.
The target of the hack, which two sources with knowledge of the indictment said was Cambodia’s foreign ministry, was also revealing - discussions between China and Cambodia over the use of the Mekong River, which has become a new battleground for U.S. and Chinese influence in Southeast Asia.
Four Chinese nationals - three security officials and a contract hacker - have been charged in the United States with attacks aimed at dozens of companies, universities and government agencies in the United States and abroad, the U.S. Justice Department said on Monday.
Reaction from the defendants named in the indictment was not immediately available.
The accusations, which China has said were fabricated and politically motivated, were outlined in a 30-page U.S. court indictment detailing the activities of what it said was a front company run by Chinese state security in Hainan, a Chinese island province near Southeast Asia.
Among the hackers’ targets was “Cambodian Government Ministry A”, according to the indictment, from which they “stole data pertaining to discussions between the governments of China and Cambodia over the use of the Mekong River” in January 2018.
22. Biden Has Angered China, and Beijing Is Pushing Back
Steven Lee Myers and Amy Qin, New York Times, July 20, 2021
Government of Canada, July 12, 2021
It is important that all stakeholders in Canada’s research ecosystem work collaboratively and in a manner consistent with Canadian laws, to identify, mitigate, and – in cases where the risks to Canadian interests cannot be sufficiently mitigated or outweigh the potential benefits – decline research partnerships that may assist those seeking to undermine Canada’s national security. In doing so, Canada’s research ecosystem will remain secure while pursuing open and collaborative research partnerships that benefit Canada, while safeguarding its national security interests.
24. Reputation Laundering in The University Sector of Open Societies
Alexander Cooley, Tena Prelec, John Heathershaw and Tom Mayne, National Endowment for Democracy, May 25, 2021
These challenges also affect other open countries where foreign gifts traditionally have not been a major source of funding but are now actively being offered and sought. Countries like the Czech Republic and Germany have witnessed high-profile scandals involving funding from PRC-connected sources, both in exerting influence through opaque payments to faculty or through the application of Chinese law to donor agreements with the university. Such examples highlight the transnational nature of this challenge.
Human Rights and Religious Persecution
25. China Can Lock Up 1 Million Muslims In Xinjiang
Megha Rajagopalan and Alison Killing, Buzzfeed News, July 21, 2021
The true total number of people who have been locked up during the campaign remains a secret. The most commonly cited estimate of 1 million comes in large part from a 2018 analysis by the scholar Adrian Zenz and is based on a leaked database of detainee numbers for 65% of Xinjiang’s counties. Chinese Human Rights Defenders, an advocacy group, published a similar estimate that year based on interviews with Uyghur exiles. A UN committee gave a similar estimate that year citing “credible reports,” and the US State Department said a week later that China could be detaining “millions” of Muslims in Xinjiang.
How much the number of detainees may have risen since 2018 is unknown — but the Chinese government continued to expand its capacity during that time. One new detention complex is currently under construction, and four existing ones are adding new buildings, allowing the government to put even more people behind bars.
26. Catholic Bishop and 10 Priests Detained in Henan
Wu Xiuying, Bitter Winter, July 22, 2021
27. Kodak Deletes Post by Photographer Who Called Xinjiang an ‘Orwellian Dystopia’
Mike Ives, New York Times, July 21, 2021
The American company Eastman Kodak has deleted an Instagram post featuring images of Xinjiang, a western Chinese region where the government is accused of grave human rights violations, after an online backlash from Beijing’s supporters.
The post was promoting the work of the French photographer Patrick Wack, who made several trips to Xinjiang in recent years and has collected his images into a book. The project received a lift last week when Kodak shared 10 of his images — all shot on Kodak film — with its 839,000 Instagram followers.
In the Kodak post and on his own Instagram account, Mr. Wack described his images as a visual narrative of Xinjiang’s “abrupt descent into an Orwellian dystopia” over the past five years. That did not sit well with Chinese social media users, who often object vociferously to Western criticism of Chinese government policies. In addition to deleting the post, Kodak apologized for “any misunderstanding or offense” that it might have caused.
28. Marking One Year of Hong Kong’s National Security Law
U.S. Department of State, July 16, 2021
Over the past year, People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Hong Kong officials have systematically undermined Hong Kong’s democratic institutions, delayed elections, disqualified elected lawmakers from office, and forced officials to take loyalty oaths to keep their jobs. Since protests began in 2019, local authorities have arrested thousands for speaking out against government policies with which they disagreed, including for their social media posts and for attending vigils. Journalists have been arrested simply for doing their jobs in reporting on the government’s activities and repressive efforts against protesters. Hong Kong authorities have mounted a persistent and politically motivated campaign against the free press, imprisoned Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai, and forced the closure of that publication – a bastion of independent reporting. Beijing has chipped away at Hong Kong’s reputation of accountable, transparent governance and respect for individual freedoms, and has broken its promise to leave Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy unchanged for 50 years.
29. ‘LeBron James a Hypocrite’, Joshua Wong calls out Lakers Star
Saurav Sharma, Sports Rush, June 6, 2020
30. Religious Books Publicly Burned, DVDs Bulldozed in Yunnan
Hu Zimo, Bitter Winter, July 21, 2021
31. Hot Pot Scandal Fuels Anger Over Hong Kong ‘Double Standards’
Iain Marlow, Bloomberg, July 15, 2021
32. Cannes Film Festival, Risking China’s Ire, to Screen Hong Kong Protest Documentary
John Lyons and Elaine Yu, Wall Street Journal, July 15, 2021
Industrial Policies and Economic Espionage
33. The Failure of China’s Microchip Giant Tests Beijing’s Tech Ambitions
New York Times, Paul Mozur, July 19, 2021
34. Illegal Hidden Dahua and Hikvision Sales, Sellers and 'Manufacturers' Blame Each Other
Conor Healy and Derek Ward, IPVM, July 20, 2021
35. US Military Bought Cameras in Violation of China Sanctions
Sam Biddle, Intercept, July 20, 2021
36. British ministers cut off funding to chip factory after sale to China
Kanishka Singh, Reuters, July 20, 2021
37. Airbus delivers first A350 jet from Chinese completion plant
Stella Qiu and Jamie Freed, Reuters, July 21, 2021
38. The rising risk of China’s intellectual-property theft
Derek Scissors, American Enterprise Institute, July 16, 2021
39. China's overseas investment starts the long climb back
Derek Scissors, American Enterprise Institute, July 20, 2021
40. Chinese Suppliers to Apple, Nike Shun Xinjiang Workers as U.S. Forced-Labor Ban Looms
Liza Lin, Eva Xiao and Yoko Kubota, Wall Street Journal, July 20, 2021
41. Analysis: Beyond security crackdown, Beijing charts state-controlled data market
Cate Cadell, Reuters, July 20, 2021
42. What China Expects from Businesses: Total Surrender
Li Yuan, New York Times, July 19, 2021
43. China Wants a Chip Machine from the Dutch. The U.S. Said No.
Stu Woo and Yang Jie, Wall Street Journal, July 17, 2021
44. China's uneven recovery threatens Xi’s tidy-up
Yawen Chen, Reuters, July 15, 2021
45. China’s Growth Slows as Pandemic Fears Persist
Keith Bradsher, New York Times, July 15, 2021
46. US regulator under fire for delays to delisting Chinese stocks
Patrick Temple-West and Demetri Sevastopulo, Financial Times, July 15, 2021
47. U.S. Senate passes bill to ban all products from China's Xinjiang
Michael Martina, Reuters, July 15, 2021
Cyber and Information Technology
48. FAST THINKING: A turning point on Chinese hacking
Atlantic Council, July 19, 2021
Monday’s White House statement lays out how China’s Ministry of State Security collaborated with private hackers to execute a breach of Microsoft Exchange accounts that impacted more than 140,000 servers this spring, mostly of small and medium-sized businesses.
49. Huawei equipment quality still insufficient says UK
Nic Fildes, Financial Times, July 20, 2021
Huawei has made “no overall improvement” in its software engineering and cyber security quality three years after it promised to fix systemic problems, according to the UK body that monitors its equipment.
The annual report from the Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre (HCSEC) said that despite “sustained progress” by the Chinese company in resolving historic issues, new problems had been uncovered that indicated that the telecoms equipment maker was still not performing to the industry standard.
50. China Compromised U.S. Pipelines in Decade-Old Cyberattack, U.S. Says
Dustin Volz, Wall Street Journal, July 20, 2021
Hackers working for the Chinese government compromised more than a dozen U.S. pipeline operators nearly a decade ago, the Biden administration revealed Tuesday while also issuing first-of-its-kind cybersecurity requirements on the pipeline industry.
The disclosure of previously classified information about the aggressive Chinese hacking campaign, though dated, underscored the severity of foreign cyber threats to the nation’s infrastructure, current and former officials said. In some cases, the hackers possessed the ability to physically damage or disrupt compromised pipelines, a new cybersecurity alert said, though it doesn’t appear they did so.
51. US indicts four members of Chinese hacking group APT40
Catalin Cimpanu, The Record, July 19, 2021
The US Department of Justice has unsealed charges today against four Chinese nationals for hacking companies, government agencies, and universities across the world on behalf of the Chinese government.
The US said the four suspects, believed to be part of a much larger group, set up a company named Hainan Xiandun Technology Development Co., Ltd. (海南仙盾) (Hainan Xiandun), which they used as a front for their hacking campaigns.
52. UK says it and allies blame Chinese-backed actors for Microsoft hacking
William James and Michael Holden, Reuters, July 19, 2021
Britain said on Monday that it and its partners held Chinese state-backed groups responsible for "a pervasive pattern of hacking" involving attacks on Microsoft Exchange servers.
The attacks took place early this year and affected more than a quarter of a million servers worldwide, the British foreign ministry said.
53. U.S. and key allies accuse China of Microsoft Exchange cyberattacks
Ina Fried, Axios, July 19, 2021
Matthew Daniels and Ben Chang, Center for Security and Emerging Technology, July 2021
Nigel Cory and Luke Dascoli, Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, July 19, 2021
56. Constant but Camouflaged, Flurry of Cyberattacks Offer Glimpse of New Era
Max Fisher, New York Times, July 20, 2021
Imogen Braddick, The Sun, July 21, 2021
58. Japan’s technology companies are defenceless, warns top official
Robin Harding and Kana Inagaki, Financial Times, July 15, 2021
Military and Security Threats
59. Don’t Let China Get a Middle East Military Base
Daniel Samet, 19FortyFive, July 20, 2021
60. Congress Takes Aim at China’s Recruitment of Talent in U.S.
Daniel Flatley, Bloomberg, July 18, 2021
61. China is pushing Japan to take on a growing military role in Indo-Pacific
Kathrin Hille, Financial Times, July 20, 2021
On the cover of Japan’s annual defence white paper released last week, a legendary 14th-century Samurai rides towards the viewer — a stark contrast with last year’s Mount Fuji and cherry blossoms.
The invocation of the famed warrior caste is no accident: Japan is putting stronger emphasis on defence and taking on a bigger role in regional security.
Front and centre is China, the giant neighbour on which Japan’s economy depends heavily but which the country’s politicians have also identified as its primary security threat.
62. Defense Acquisition in Russia and China
Mark Ashby, Caolionn O'Connell, Edward Geist, Jair Aguirre, Christian Curriden and Jon Fujiwara, RAND Corporation, January 2021
One Belt, One Road Strategy
63. AUDIO – China Global Podcast: Chinese Investment in Global Ports and PRC Strategy with Dr. Isaac Kardon
Bonnie S. Glaser, German Marshall Fund, July 20, 2021
64. Italy Has Learned a Tough Lesson on China
Ludovica Meacci, Foreign Policy, June 24, 2021
65. Sri Lanka’s Sweet Deal with China Underpins the Belt and Road Initiative
Georgia Leatherdale-Gilholy, National Interest, July 18, 2021
66. Who Built That? Labor and the Belt and Road Initiative
Jennifer Hillman and Alex Tippett, Council on Foreign Relations, July 6, 2021
Opinion Pieces
67. China's Looming Succession Crisis
Jude Blanchette and Richard McGregor, Foreign Affairs, July 20, 2021
68. China is still a long way from being a superpower
Gideon Rachman, Financial Times, July 19, 2021
69. China Is Killing Its Tech Golden Goose
Project Syndicate, Minxin Pei, July 12, 2021
US politicians from both congressional parties are worried that China is overtaking America as the global leader in science and technology. In a rare display of bipartisanship, the normally gridlocked Senate passed a bill in early June to spend close to $250 billion in the next decade to promote cutting-edge research. But lawmakers may be fretting unnecessarily, because the Chinese government seems to be doing everything possible to lose its tech race with America.
70. The U.K. Needs a Coherent Approach to China and Tech Security
Emily Taylor, World Politics Review, July 20, 2021
71. Why is China falling behind on breakthrough innovation?
Qiang Zha, University World News, July 17, 2021
72. Can the Chinese Communist Party Endure?
Guy Sorman, City Journal, July 19, 2021
73. The Government’s secrecy over cyber attacks leaves us vulnerable and deluded
Ciaran Martin, The Telegraph, July 22, 2021
74. Markets haven’t even begun to reflect China-US decoupling risks
George Magnus, Financial Times, July 20, 2021
75. The Federal Government Can’t Counter China on Its Own
Alexander Gray, National Review, July 12, 2021
The states, and America’s nonprofit and private sectors, must play a role, too.
As the Biden administration begins to shape its China policy, from supporting Taiwan against Chinese provocations to strengthening export controls on entities aligned with the People’s Liberation Army, it is increasingly clear that it is following in its predecessor’s footsteps. Other key players in this conversation, however, are still formulating their respective approaches. Those actors are U.S. states, and they have a significant role to play in the unfolding great-power competition between China and the United States.
Take Chinese investment in state pension funds. At the federal level, the Trump administration spoke candidly of the risk posed by investing federal employees’ pensions in China through the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). Such investment “would expose the retirement funds to significant and unnecessary economic risk, and it would channel federal employees’ money to companies that present significant national security and humanitarian concerns,” wrote then-national-security-adviser Robert O’Brien and then-National Economic Council–director Larry Kudlow in May 2020.
Many U.S. states are reckoning with similar concerns posed by their own pension funds’ investments in America’s principal geopolitical rival. The California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) and the New York State Teachers’ Retirement System were long invested in Hikvision, the now-blacklisted company notable for making surveillance devices for China’s network of concentration camps in Xinjiang. The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), too, has been repeatedly questioned about its connections to Chinese-government entities.
But these egregious examples hide the more mundane challenge facing most U.S. states: investing pension funds in China, even if it doesn’t directly subsidize Chinese human-rights abuses or further Beijing’s military ambitions, places undue risk on already-burdened state pension systems. The opacity of Chinese corporate governance, combined with China’s official policy of refusing to comply with the oversight standards of bodies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), makes such investments inherently risky.
What’s more, investing state pension funds in Chinese companies exposes states to China’s political whims and its proclivity for economic blackmail, with billions of dollars in assets hostage to Beijing’s approval of any aspect of a state’s approach to China. (If this sounds hyperbolic, go ask Australian wine producers, Norwegian salmon fishermen, and Taiwanese pineapple growers whether China plays politics with economic decisions.)
There are many other elements of China policy that U.S. states must tackle independent of the federal government in the years ahead. While national security-sensitive investments will trigger review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS), states should begin to develop their own approaches to courting Chinese investment in light of the current era of great-power competition. Every state official must balance the potential, short-term economic gain of Chinese investment with the longer-term threat posed by persistent and pervasive intellectual-property theft and the dangers inherent in greater economic integration with Beijing.
This holds true as well for state colleges and universities, which have relied heavily on Chinese students and opened satellite programs in China in recent years. Washington may set immigration policy, but state universities have an obligation to think critically about their admissions policies and international relationships. It does not advance any state’s interests to have Chinese researchers obtaining sensitive intellectual property from its universities’ laboratories, or Confucius Institutes acting as a hub for the Chinese Communist Party to monitor Chinese students on American campuses.
Some governors and state legislatures are acting swiftly to address the multidimensional challenge posed by China at the state and municipal level. Governor Ron DeSantis and the Florida legislature have banned Confucius Institutes on state campuses, and taken proactive action against intellectual-property theft by increasing penalties for such crimes. More states can and should follow suit, and indeed, some have already begun to do so; a number of states are now considering establishing bipartisan commissions to study the China question and recommend new approaches to their governors and legislatures.
If the United States is to compete successfully with China in the decades to come, it cannot be via an effort directed solely from Washington. State, municipal, and tribal governments, along with America’s private and nonprofit sectors, must take actions of their own to meet the challenges posed by Beijing, too. It is only by harnessing the full power of our federalist system that we will succeed in the competition to come.
76. To Win Friends and Influence People, America Should Learn From the CCP
Jim Richardson, Foreign Policy, July 22, 2021