China Articles - June 19, 2022
Friends,
Happy Fathers Day and Juneteenth! I hope you can spend time today commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans at the end of the Civil War, as well as making time to call your Dad.
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to be on a panel for the Council on Foreign Relations’ National Conference in New York. The topic was “China on the Global Stage” and I was lucky to be seated next to some truly exceptional colleagues: Yuen Yuen Ang, an Associate Professor at the University of Michigan specializing in PRC politics and the author of China’s Gilded Age: The Paradox of Economic Boom and Vast Corruption and Rush Doshi, my successor at the National Security Council and the author of the excellent book The Long Game: China’s Grand Strategy to Displace American Order. Our moderator was my friend Lingling Wei, the Chief China Correspondent for the Wall Street Journal.
We had a great discussion and Lingling did an excellent job teasing out the most important points. I want to thank the Council on Foreign Relations for inviting me to participate.
As usual, we have a sizable collection of articles and reports on the CCP’s malign activities.
Thanks for reading!
Matt
MUST READ
1. The United States Can’t Afford to Stay Entangled with China
Jacob Helberg and Enes Kanter Freedom, Foreign Policy, June 15, 2022
As the Jewish grandson of Holocaust survivors and the Muslim son of a Turkish political prisoner, we know the cost free societies pay when well-intentioned policies repeatedly culminate to inaction and reaction in the face of successive warning signs by autocrats with global ambitions. Macroeconomics cannot be indefinitely divorced from geopolitics. The United States should heed those lessons and proactively redefine its economic relationship with another ruthless authoritarian power: China.
A Chinese invasion of Taiwan would prompt the same existential questions about the United States’ reliance on Chinese supply chains as Europe’s reliance on Russian energy. The economic chaos would be tremendous; the solutions would be excruciatingly hard to implement in the compressed time frame a crisis would create. The United States could find itself cut off from access to semiconductors, vital pharmaceuticals, and countless other goods that play a critical role in Americans’ everyday lives.
Think of what the impact might be if just one company, Apple, unexpectedly lost access to its iPhone production lines in China. Apple is valued between $2 trillion and $3 trillion; the top four U.S. mutual funds have well over $100 billion invested in that company. Apple employs, directly or indirectly, more than 2 million Americans spread across every state. Now imagine that effect spread across multiple large companies.
Advocates for China often argue that this cost means nothing can, or should, be done to stop Chinese aggression. Beijing gets a free pass as long as the U.S. economy is dependent on it. Contra the apologists, the solution to this isn’t to go softer on China’s territorial aggression or large-scale human rights abuses. It’s doing the hard work of decoupling now to give the United States the freedom to act in defense of the global world order and its own values. Otherwise, Washington could end up in the same situation as Berlin, with a complacent leadership suddenly called to account by public anger and struggling to manage the economic consequences.
2. VIDEO - Africa Eye: Racism for sale
BBC, June 14, 2022
In February 2020 a shocking video began to circulate on Chinese social media. A group of African children are being instructed, by a voice off-camera, to chant phrases in Chinese. The kids repeat the words with smiles and enthusiasm — but they don't understand that what they're being told to say is " I am a black monster and my IQ is low."
The clip ignited outrage in China and beyond. But no-one ever answered some crucial questions: why was this filmed? Where was it shot? Who made it?
These questions send BBC Africa Eye reporters Runako Celina and Henry Mhango on a journey into a Chinese video-making industry that exploits vulnerable children across the continent.
COMMENT: Systemic racism in the PRC, which is encouraged and amplified by the Chinese Communist Party to bolster its legitimacy, does not get enough attention. The dynamics that lead to the kind of behavior evident in this video, also contributes to the dehumanization of ethnic minorities (like the Uyghurs, Tibetans and Mongols), religious and spiritual groups (Muslims, Christains, Falun Gong), and the PRC’s LGBTQ communities.
As the Party turns more to Han chauvinism and amplifies how the rest of the world victimizes China, I expect these things to worse.
3. UN human rights chief to forgo second term amid China trip criticism
Vincent Ni, The Guardian, June 13, 2022
The UN human rights chief has announced her decision to step down. Citing 'personal reasons' the announcement comes amid weeks of speculation following her recent visit to the PRC that drew fierce criticism from activists and Western politicians.
4. China’s Southern Strategy
Nadège Rolland, Foreign Affairs, June 09, 2022
Xi's desire to turn the PRC into the world’s most powerful state is coupled with an inextricable corollary: the imperative of stopping what he sees as efforts by the West to contain it. A united front of developing countries led by the Chinese Communist Party could encircle and isolate the powers, just as the Party had "surrounded the cities from the countryside" during the Chinese Civil War.
Sabine Mokry, U.S.-China Perception Monitor, June 13, 2022
Researcher Sabine Mokry analyzes the differences between the original Chinese-language documents and speeches that the Chinese Communist Party issues and their “official” English-language translations that the Party releases and that many foreign observers of the PRC rely on. In many cases there are significant substantive differences in how the PRC Government’s official English-language translation compares to the original document.
6. VIDEO – How Vinyl Flooring Made with Uyghur Forced Labor Ends Up at Big Box Stores
YouTube, June 14, 2022
The industry calls it “luxury vinyl tile.” In reality, the popular plastic flooring is produced using toxic chemicals — and forced labor.
AUTHORITARIANISM
7. China Releases Bloomberg News Staffer Detained on National-Security Grounds
Chun Han Wong, Wall Street Journal, June 14, 2022
Haze Fan, a Chinese national, was taken into custody for unknown reasons in December 2020.
Chinese authorities said they released a local staff member of Bloomberg News’s Beijing bureau on bail in January, more than a year after she was detained for alleged national-security offenses.
COMMENT: The relative silence of Michael Bloomberg since December 2020 is disturbing. In November 2021, I attended the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore and in a virtual format Bloomberg happily hosted Wang Qishan, the PRC Vice President, and I don’t remember any mention of the Bloomberg News staffer being held by his government on ambiguous charges of ‘national security offenses.’
8. China Is Walking Back Virus Loosening Weeks After Reopening
Michelle Cortez, Bloomberg, June 11, 2022
9. Shanghai reimposes lockdowns after detecting 11 Covid cases
Eleanor Olcott, Financial Times, June 10, 2022
China's most populous city detected 11 new infections on Friday. Measures will affect eight of the financial hub’s 16 districts, including Pudong, one of worst-hit areas at the start of lockdown. Three cases were detected in the Red Rose beauty parlour in city centre, prompting health authorities to test more than 90,000 people close to the salon. Only days earlier, the Xuhui local party body wrote a celebratory post on the microblogging platform Weibo.
10. China’s Xi offers closer cooperation with Russia in a call with Putin.
Chris Buckley, New York Times, June 15, 2022
China’s president, Xi Jinping, offered to deepen cooperation with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir V. Putin, in a phone call on Wednesday, signaling that Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine had not dented Mr. Xi’s basic commitment to their partnership.
The two leaders’ call appeared to be their first since late February, soon after Russia launched its full assault on Ukraine. In the months since, the Chinese government has sought to preserve ties with Moscow while maintaining that it was trying to be an impartial broker for peace in Ukraine.
But the summary of the conversation between Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin issued by the Chinese Foreign Ministry left little doubt that — whatever his misgivings about the invasion of Ukraine — Mr. Xi remains committed to close ties with Russia, which help to offset rising antagonism with the United States and its allies.
COMMENT: There continues to be a deep desire to believe that Xi Jinping wants to distance himself and the PRC from Putin’s failure. This springs from two assumptions: 1) that Putin will fail; and 2) a belief that the PRC and Russia can still be separated through some sort of deft diplomatic triangulation. I don’t think we can make the first assumption yet, and as for the second, I don’t think there is a feasible path to separating the PRC and the Russian Federation while Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin remain as their leaders.
Both leaders share a worldview that sees the United States and the rules-based, liberal international order as an existential threat to their regimes and they are committed to helping one another create an illiberal international order.
11. For Its Next Zero Covid Chapter, China Turns to Mass Testing
Alexandra Stevenson, New York Times, June 14, 2022
12. A Chinese Entrepreneur Who Says What Others Only Think
Li Yuan, New York Times, June 10, 2022
Already a maverick in business circles, Zhou Hang has dared to openly criticize the government’s zero Covid policy — and urges his peers to speak out, too.
13. China still withholding data on Covid origins, WHO panel suggests
Sarah Newey, The Telegraph, June 9, 2022
14. Inside the secretive world of shipping Russia's tainted oil
Louis Ashworth, The Telegraph, June 12, 2022
15. Vanished Chinese Billionaire Set to Face Criminal Trial in Shanghai
Keith Zhai, Wall Street Journal, June 9, 2022
16. VIDEO - Fanfare as first major road bridge connecting Russia and China opens
The Guardian, June 11, 2022
17. Hong Kong NETs – foreign teachers of English – forced to take allegiance oath
The Guardian, June 12, 2022
18. China’s overzealous covid testing is creating new billionaires while punishing the poor
Tiffany Ap, Quartz, June 09, 2022
19. China’s Propaganda on the War in Ukraine
Maria Repnikova, China Leadership Monitor, June 01, 2022
20. How Hong Kong could become the next hot place for Russian oligarchs to store their wealth
James Griffiths, The Globe and Mail, June 10, 2022
ENVIRONMENTAL HARMS
21. Preliminary Report for the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens
World Health Organization, June 9, 2022
22. $1 billion, 15 years, zero energy: What next for a troubled Ecuadorian dam?
Diálogo Chino, June 15, 2022
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE AND COERCION
23. Universities face sanctions if they allow Chinese influence to curb free speech
Mason Boycott-Owen; Juliet Samuel, The Telegraph, June 13, 2022
Universities will be sanctioned if they allow the Chinese Communist Party to influence what is said on campus. The British government is introducing new amendments to its Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) bill on Monday to curb foreign influence on campuses. It will require overseas funding of £75,000 or more to be declared by universities and students’ unions.
24. Beijing ban on Taiwanese grouper prompts emergency measures for farmers
Lawrence Chung, South China Morning Post, June 13, 2022
25. Ban Beijing’s institutes from university campuses, MPs urge
Charlie Parker, Sunday Times, February 14, 2022
26. Universities facing new China cash crackdown
Ben Ellery, Sunday Times, June 12, 2022
27. Share of Scottish university fees from Chinese students revealed
Mark McLaughlin and Jordan Hunter, Sunday Times, June 13, 2022
28. Chinese donor in fraud inquiry made a fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge
Ben Ellery and Sam Dunning, Sunday Times, June 10, 2022
29. China Surpasses US in Eyes of Young Africans, Survey Shows
Anthony Sguazzin, Bloomberg, June 12, 2022
30. Czech Republic eyes exit from China’s 16+1 investment club
Tim Gosling, Aljazeera, June 8, 2022
31. Chinese TV found guilty of further violations in UK
Safeguard Defenders, June 13, 2022
32. Rare earths: The EU wants to free itself from dependence on China
Moritz Koch; Carsten Volkery, Handlesblatt, June 10, 2022 – ORIGINAL IN GERMAN
33. Congress targets Harvard, Yale and top universities with China-linked endowments
Phelim Kine, Politico, June 9, 2022
HUMAN RIGHTS AND RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
34. UN human rights chief ‘not able to speak to’ any detained Uygurs in China
Finbarr Bermingham, South China Morning Post, June 15, 2022
35. Dragon Boat Festival Used for Anti-Religious Propaganda
Guo Guo, Bitter Winter, June 13, 2022
36. China Restaurant Assault Revives Attention on Women’s Safety
Liyan Qi, Wall Street Journal, June 11, 2022
37. China Deserves New Sanctions Over Xinjiang, EU Lawmakers Say
Lyubov Pronina, Bloomberg, June 9, 2022
38. Life is getting harder for gay people in China
The Economist, June 9, 2022
While sexual minorities celebrate elsewhere, in Chin they are hunkering down.
39. How Vinyl Flooring Made with Uyghur Forced Labor Ends Up at Big Box Stores
Mara Hvistendahl, The Intercept, June 14, 2022
40. China's Xinjiang faces 'risk of genocide': EU parliament
Rhyannon Bartlett-Imadegawa, Nikkei Asia, June 10, 2022
41. European Parliament passes landslide vote on alleged Xinjiang rights abuses
Finbarr Bermingham, South China Morning Post, June 09, 2022
42. Xinjian Scholars Urge UN Rights Chief to Finish China Study
Bloomberg, June 09, 2022
INDUSTRIAL POLICIES AND ECONOMIC ESPIONAGE
43. Nearly 150 U.S.-traded Chinese companies at risk of delisting
Takenori Miyamoto and Noriyuki Doi, Nikkei Asia, June 14, 2022
44. 3 US companies sanctioned over blueprints sent to China
Eric Tucker, Associated Press, June 8, 2022
45. The China research battle: Debate rages over red lines in academia
Nikkei Asia, June 15, 2022
46. The China-Germany Investment Nexus Frays
Nathaniel Taplin, Wall Street Journal, June 10, 2022
Europe’s industrial and trade heavyweight, long a cheerleader for strong China ties, has been sounding more ambivalent lately
47. China's State Key Laboratory System
Emily S. Weinstein, Channing Lee, Ryan Fedasiuk and Anna Puglisi, CSET, June 15, 2022
48. UK option on Sizewell-plant stake puts China’s role in focus
Rachel Morison and Ellen Milligan, Bloomberg, June 14, 2022
49. How Xi Jinping is reshaping China’s capital markets
Hudson Lockett, Financial Times, June 12, 2022
50. China becomes the largest importer of Russian energy
Handlesblatt, June 13, 2022 – ORIGINAL IN GERMAN
CYBER & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
51. Thousands of Mobike users’ passports and IDs exposed online
Zack Whittaker, Rita Liao, TechCrunch, June 8, 2022
52. Alibaba and Tencent’s darkening clouds
Tabby Kinder, Financial Times, June 14, 2022
53. West faces ‘moment of reckoning’ over China’s online influence, GCHQ warns
Joe Pinkstone, The Telegraph, June 10, 2022
54. Chinese hackers exploited years-old software flaws to break into telecom giants
Patrick Howell O’Neill, MIT Technology Review, June 8, 2022
MILITARY AND SECURITY THREATS
55. China Starts Solomon Islands Police Training After Security Pact
Brett Miller, Bloomberg, June 11, 2022
56. ‘Ironclad brothers’: what China wants from its role in Cambodia’s biggest naval base
Helen Davidson, The Guardian, June 10, 2022
57. We needed China deal to protect ‘domestic security’, says key Solomon Islands official
Georgina Kekea, The Guardian, June 14, 2022
58. U.S. Defense Secretary Warns That China’s Military Is Increasingly Aggressive
Niharika Mandhana, Wall Street Journal, June 11, 2022
59. Chinese Pilots Sent a Message. American Allies Said They Went Too Far.
Austin Ramzy, New York Times, June 09, 2022
60. China's military expansion is 'opaque': Australia defense minister
Rurika Imahashi and Kaori Takahashi, Nikkei Asia, June 14, 2022
61. ‘Absurd’: Taipei rejects Beijing’s sovereign claims over Taiwan Strait
Lawrence Chung, South China Morning Post, June 14, 2022
62. China Alarms US With Private Warnings to Avoid Taiwan Strait
Peter Martin, Bloomberg, June 12, 2022
63. Xi Jingping announces plans to allow Chinese military to undertake ‘armed forces operations’ abroad
Bill Birtles, ABC News, June 14, 2022
64. ‘PLA will continue to harass aircraft operating in international airspace’
Cleo Paskal, Sunday Guardian Live, June 11, 2022
65. USA versus China: “Until Taiwan is so isolated that it has no other choice”
Christina zur Nedden, Die Welt, June 15, 2022 – ORIGINAL IN GERMAN
66. Taiwan emergency, U.S.-Taiwan cooperation Japan also has a dialogue with Mr. Kinzo Watanabe
Sankei News, June 08, 2022
ONE BELT, ONE ROAD STRATEGY
67. Pakistan blackouts choke economy as China power plants go unpaid
Adnan Aamir, Nikkei Asia, June 15, 2022
68. Uruguay’s Values-Based Foreign Policy Includes Growing Ties to China
R. Evan Ellis, World Politics Review, June 10, 2022
OPINION PIECES
Sigmar Gabriel and Michael Huther, Handlesblatt, June 08, 2022 – ORIGINAL IN GERMAN
[GOOGLE TRANSLATE] We are witnessing a tectonic shift in global power axes. The Atlantic is no longer the only center of gravity, it is now in competition with the Indo-Pacific. This is accompanied by the end of the European era, in which the old continent was the central starting point for global developments for a good 600 years, for better or for worse. The "Pax Americana", which dominated the global order at the latest after the collapse of the Soviet Union, is also history. These three points mark the actual “turning point”.
Two powers currently dominate geopolitical competition: China and the United States. Vladimir Putin's attack on Ukraine is Russia's attempt to regain its role as a major power in the reorganization of the world. The opportunity seemed opportune, with the deeply divided US preoccupied with itself and rival China. Europe also seemed divided, divided into North and South, East and West. And hadn't French President Emmanuel Macron himself declared that NATO was "brain dead"? Nonetheless, all Russian calculations have turned out to be wrong.
China's political leadership is evidently observing this development with satisfaction. The old rival Russia , with which there were still violent border conflicts in the second half of the 20th century, seems to fall into the People's Republic's lap like a ripe fruit. At the same time, the US must now refocus on Europe instead of being able to prioritize the Indo-Pacific region. This makes it easier for China to pursue its maritime interests there.
But what at first glance looks like an advantage can quickly become a significant risk. Beijing is dependent on nothing more than the steady increase in its economic strength. Despite the huge Chinese domestic market, the People's Republic remains dependent on the global exchange of goods, services and technologies. Otherwise it cannot fulfill the dream of prosperity for all Chinese.
70. We need a Bretton Woods for the digital age
Mike Rogers, Financial Times, June 13, 2022
71. Proposed US crackdown on ‘Big Tech’ has one winner: China
Bonnie Glick, The Hill, May 24, 2022
72. What Returning to China Taught Me About China
Michael Schuman, Atlantic, June 14, 2022
Coming back to Beijing showed me what happens when an unfettered state is allowed free rein, unchecked by law or civil society.
…
The fear I felt then has been constant since I returned to China three months ago. It hovers in the back of my mind; it keeps me awake at night. The fear isn’t of the virus itself. It’s that the next knock will come from one of the health officials, community wardens, or security officers who enforce China’s strict pandemic controls and have the power to drag me into any quarantine, at any facility, for any length of time, at any time. It’s the fear of being suddenly locked into my apartment, without access to food. My fear—the fear of the millions experiencing harsh lockdowns in Shanghai and elsewhere in China—is the fear of the arbitrary.
China under Communist Party rule has always been an autocracy with overwhelming repressive capabilities. But in the era of Xi Jinping, the state has been empowered to tighten its grip on society and equipped with enhanced surveillance technology to make that possible. The pandemic has offered the state further rationale and opportunity to expand this power. Ever since the government squashed the initial coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan more than two years ago, keeping COVID cases at zero has been touted at home and abroad as a mark of Chinese greatness. To maintain that success, the bureaucracy has erected new controls and regulations, implemented through technology that tracks, monitors, and limits people’s movements and behavior, penetrating deep into Chinese life.
73. Michelle Bachelet’s Failed Xinjiang Trip Has Tainted Her Whole Legacy
Benedict Rogers, Foreign Policy, June 15, 2022
74. Has China Lost Europe?
Ian Johnson, Foreign Affairs, June 10, 2022
75. The U.S. Is Losing Its Military Edge in Asia, and China Knows It
Ashley Townshend and James Crabtree, New York Times, June 15, 2022
76. The Sheriff and the Banker? Russia and China in Central Asia
Janko Scepanovic, War on the Rocks, June 13, 2022
77. After 10 years in power, it’s clear Xi Jinping does not think in economic terms
Kerry Brown, Prospect Magazine, June 9, 2022
There are two things we can be sure about. The first is that after 10 years in power, it is pretty clear that Xi does not think in economic terms, and is not likely to change. A more pragmatic leader would have found a way around the zero Covid obsession. Evidently Xi sees this as a political issue, and one where he is not for turning.
Secondly, while we don’t know what faltering or regressing growth might have on Chinese people, we can be sure that it will have some kind of impact. It will either make them restive, which is a problem for Xi, or even more nationalistic and assertive, which is a problem for the outside world. Whatever way one looks, a declining Chinese economy is bad news.
78. China is becoming a hermit kingdom
Rana Mitter, The Spectator, June 11, 2022
79. The Dismantling of Hong Kong
Karen Cheung, New York Magazine, June 13, 2022
Since 2019, my hometown has slowly transformed into a brutal, unrecognizable place. Then came Omicron.
…
When I say I miss Hong Kong, what I mean is the city as I remember it between the years of 2014 and 2019. In the aftermath of the 79-day pro-democracy occupation protests in 2014, every neighborhood across the city set up its own grassroots form of civic engagement: Residents self-organized home repairs for the elderly and ran historical walking tours to build stronger community ties.
…
These days, Hong Kong is a different city altogether. In the wake of the 2014 mass protests, a series of events foreshadowed the encroachment from China that was to come: legislators disqualified from parliament for altering their oaths to express discontent toward Beijing, booksellers kidnapped and detained in China. In 2019, Hong Kong proposed an extradition bill that would allow the city to send “criminals” to China, sparking alarm that the judiciary would no longer be independent from the Communist regime and spurring mass protests that transformed our streets into guerrilla battlefields; in June 2020, Beijing implemented in Hong Kong the national security law, a broad tool for silencing dissent that could outlaw a political slogan one day then censor films and books the next. Under the guise of pandemic social-distancing, public gatherings were banned, and protests disappeared from the streets. Later in 2020, a teacher had his license revoked after showing his class a documentary featuring a pro-independence activist; in the years since, prominent commentators, including Apple Daily writer Fung Wai-kong and academic Hui Po Keung, have been arrested at the airport while attempting to leave the city. New election rules implemented in 2021 now dictate that only “patriots” can administer Hong Kong. By early 2022, at least 50 civil organizations have disbanded in the ongoing crackdown, including a pro-democracy trade-union coalition and an activist group that commemorates the Tiananmen massacre.
After the national security law passed in June 2020, friends began leaving Hong Kong every few weeks. One by one, they disappeared from the camera reel on my phone, leaving me with things they couldn’t take with them: an oven, a Sodastream, a sous-vide machine, a stone diffuser, and five bottles of ground cinnamon. From 2020 through 2021, it was reported that 116,000 residents had left, often departing for countries like Britain and Canada, which, amid the turmoil, announced residency schemes for Hong Kongers. Every other day on social media, someone pens a eulogy for the city. They were leaving; there was no way to plan for a future in this place, where every day brought about an unexpected change to the existing set of rules. Hong Kong had “become a place that could no longer tolerate truth,” pollster and moderate commentator Chung Kim Wah said earlier this year. He was born and raised here, but he craved broader skies and fresher air where he would no longer have to worry about shifting red lines.
In February 2022, when the aisles of my neighborhood supermarket began emptying from vegetable shortages and panic-buys, I thought about the language of dystopia we so often resorted to over the past three years. Our dystopia had thus far been political, a synonym for totalitarianism, oppression, and injustice. It smelled like the burnt residue of tear gas; its side effects include insomnia. But government officials, business leaders, pro-Beijing politicians continued to assure us that this post-national security law Hong Kong was far from dystopian — it was an improved version of the city. Then a new kind of dystopia arrived, one which made it harder to keep up the pretense.
80. Analysis: Xi shushes party elders as he marches toward 3rd term
Katsuji Nakazawa, Nikkei Asia, June 9, 2022