China Articles - March 13, 2022
Friends,
This week’s newsletter includes the decision by Norway’s sovereign wealth fund to divest of PRC athletic apparel marker Li Ning over suspicions of forced labor at the company’s facilities in Xinjiang.
This decision by the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund comes as 192 human rights groups sent an open letter to the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, demanding the release of the UN’s investigation into the PRC’s abuses of Uyghur and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang. Bachelet, the former President of Chile, has delayed for months the release of the report.
As “the principal United Nations office mandated to promote and protect human rights for all,” the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) appears to have fallen victim to the same CCP influence campaign that has undermined other international organizations like the World Health Organization.
With the Russian military attacking civilian targets in their stalled invasion of Ukraine, the Chinese Communist Party has redoubled its propaganda efforts to blame the war on the United States and NATO (see #13, #19, #20, #27, #28, #31 and #32).
Thanks for reading!
Matt
MUST READ
1. Norway's Oil Fund Divests Chinese Clothing Brand Over Uighur Labour
Barron’s, March 8, 2022
Norway's sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world, will sell off its stake in China's Li Ning over suspicions of forced labour use in the Xinjiang region, the fund's manager said.
Li Ning, a manufacturer and trader of sportswear and equipment, was singled out "due to unacceptable risk that the company contributes to serious human rights violations," Norges Bank, the Norwegian central bank, said in a statement late Monday.
The decision followed a recommendation from its Council on Ethics, which in an advisory opinion pointed to reports linking Li Ning to "a supplier said to manufacture inside an internment camp".
China is accused of having interned more than a million Uighurs, a Muslim minority living in Xinjiang, in political re-education camps and exploiting them for forced labour.
At the end of 2021, the Norwegian fund, which was then worth 12,340 billion Norwegian kroner ($1,376 billion, 1,264 billion euros), held 0.59 percent of Li Ning shares, valued at nearly 1.5 billion kroner, which it has now sold.
Human Rights Watch, March 8, 2022
Madam High Commissioner,
We, the undersigned human rights organisations, write to follow up on your commitment last year to release a report on grave ongoing human rights violations by Chinese authorities targeting Uyghurs and other Turkic communities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (the Uyghur region). The release of the report without further delay is essential – to send a message to victims and perpetrators alike that no state, no matter how powerful, is above international law or the robust independent scrutiny of your Office.
As you are aware, many of our organisations have documented how Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups in the Uyghur region face systematic state-organized mass detention, torture, persecution, and other violations of a scale and nature amounting to crimes against humanity. We have repeatedly raised alarm – including to your Office – over the extreme measures taken by Chinese authorities since 2017 to root out the religious traditions, cultural practices, and local languages of the region’s Muslim ethnic groups. Carried out under the guise of fighting “terrorism”, these crimes have targeted ethnic Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Hui, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks and Tajiks.
In 2020, an unprecedented number of special procedures issued a landmark statement expressing concerns over human rights violations in China, including in the Uyghur region, and called for the UN to take decisive action. Treaty Bodies have also raised concerns over the situation in that region over the last five years.
In contrast to these efforts, we have been concerned by the relative silence of your Office in the face of these grave violations, aside from procedural updates on the status of negotiations to gain meaningful access to Xinjiang. In that context, we welcomed your confirmation in September last year that your Office was “finalising its assessment of the available information on allegations of serious human rights violations in [Xinjiang] with a view to making it public.” Six months later, after having been assured by your spokesperson in December the report would be released in a matter of weeks, the world is still awaiting that report.
Victims and survivors should not have to wait any longer. They and their families deserve justice and accountability, and need to know that your Office stands with them.
We urge you to fulfil your mandate, release the report without further delay, and brief members and observers of the UN Human Rights Council on its contents as a matter of urgency.
Accountability can wait no longer.
Signatories: 192 human rights organizations
3. Lewandowski drops sponsor Huawei amid Ukraine crisis
France 24, March 7, 2022
This week, Bayern Munich's Polish international striker Robert Lewandowski abruptly ended his sponsorship relationship with Huawei amid claims the PRC tech company is actively assisting Russia with its invasion of Ukraine.
4. Ukraine helped build China’s modern military, but when war came, Beijing chose Russia
Eva Dou and Pei Lin Wu, Washington Post, March 9, 2022
When Ukraine asked China for help in bringing about a cease-fire after Russia invaded, it was calling on a country whose modern military Kyiv had helped build.
Ukraine has supplied Beijing for years with critical military technology that it couldn’t get elsewhere, including China’s first aircraft carrier, technology for its naval antimissile radar, and advanced jet engines. It’s also a key supplier of agricultural products such as corn and sunflower oil to China.
“China would not have even a single operational aircraft carrier in service today, if not for that help,” said Sarah Kirchberger, the head of the Center for Asia-Pacific Strategy and Security at Germany’s Kiel University.
This history helps explain why Beijing might feel a bit awkward about the invasion, but China’s dependence on Russia outweighs its relationship with Ukraine, and Beijing has publicly backed Moscow. Ukraine also has been tilting away from China in recent years as it angled to join NATO, the Western military alliance.
5. VIDEO – Made in Beijing: The Plan for Global Market Domination
Federal Bureau of Investigation, March 7, 2022
Through interviews with FBI agents and executives of victim companies, this film aims to help the private sector recognize the urgent need to protect their intellectual property against sustained and ongoing industrial espionage by the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
6. U.S. State Governments Hit in Chinese Hacking Spree
Dustin Volz, Wall Street Journal, March 8, 2022
Hackers believed to be sponsored by the Chinese government have accessed computer systems in six U.S. state governments in a continuing espionage campaign that included the use of the widespread Log4J computer bug detected late last year, according to cybersecurity researchers.
The hacks, which took advantage of vulnerable internet-facing web applications, date to at least May 2021, according to new findings made public Tuesday by the U.S.-based cybersecurity firm Mandiant. As recently as February, two of the victims were hacked again by the same group.
The researchers at Mandiant said the hacks are part of an unusually persistent and aggressive campaign from a prolific Chinese hacking group—dubbed Advanced Persistent Threat 41, or APT 41, by Mandiant—that U.S. officials have previously linked to Beijing’s Ministry of State Security.
AUTHORITARIANISM
7. Lithuania sees threats from two big powers: Russia and China
The Economist, March 5, 2022
8. China and synthetic drugs: Geopolitics trumps counternarcotics cooperation
Vanda Felbab-Brown, Brookings, March 7, 2022
9. China Opposes Sanctions and Has a Reputation for Busting Them
James T. Areddy, Wall Street Journal, March 6, 2022
10. ‘It came too late’: Chinese students who fled Ukraine criticise embassy response
Vincent Ni, The Guardian, March 8, 2022
11. ‘No Wavering’: After Turning to Putin, Xi Faces Hard Wartime Choices for China
Chris Buckley and Steven Lee Myers, New York Times, March 7, 2022
Zongyuan Zoe Liu and Mihaela Papa, Foreign Affairs, March 7, 2022
13. China touts ‘rock solid’ ties with Russia as it offers to mediate Ukraine conflict
Christian Shepherd, Washington Post, March 7, 2022
Beijing’s efforts to play peacemaker come as it continues to blame the United States and NATO for instigating the war.
14. Seeking Truth and Justice, Chinese See Themselves in a Chained Woman
Li Yuan, New York Times, March 1, 2022
The Chinese government faces a quandary: how to convince its people that what it said about a chained woman is true.
Since a short video of the woman chained in a doorless shack went viral in late January, the Chinese public has taken the matter into its own hands to find out who she is, whether she is a victim of human trafficking and why the apparently mentally ill woman had eight children.
The public thought it couldn’t trust a government that was not truthful about her identity and that was acquiescent when it came to forced marriages involving human trafficking.
On Chinese social media, users dug up a marriage certificate with a photo of a woman who was identified by the government as the chained woman but looked different from her. They dived into court documents that showed the region where she lived has a dark history of human trafficking. Long-retired investigative journalists traveled to a village deep in the mountains, knocking on each door, to verify the government’s claim that she grew up there.
15. Foreign embassies in China puzzle over a diplomat’s detention
The Economist, March 5, 2022
Fear is a potent tool, but not always a precise one. In the foreign embassies of Beijing, there is no doubt that China’s secret police wished to send a chilling message when they detained a Japanese diplomat for some hours on February 21st, trampling the legal principle of diplomatic immunity. Envoys debate whether the operation was an attack on Japan, overreach by aggressive spooks or a calculated warning to foreign missions that even routine meetings with Chinese contacts are out of bounds, as national-security rules tighten further.
Some details of the case are shockingly clear-cut. Japan’s diplomat was accosted after lunch with a Chinese citizen at a hotel restaurant in Beijing. The envoy was taken to a room at the hotel and surrounded by ten or so men. A diplomatic identity card was shown, and ignored by the captors, as were the diplomat’s demands to call the Japanese embassy. Identifying themselves as state-security officers, they proceeded with a two-hour interrogation about the lunch. Yet the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, the treaty that protects diplomats, is unambiguous, stating: “The person of a diplomatic agent shall be inviolable. He shall not be liable to any form of arrest or detention.”
16. In fast-changing Europe, rage against Russia fuels suspicion of China
Finbarr Bermingham, South China Morning Post, March 3, 2022
17. From Fear to Behavior Modification: Beijing Entrenches Corruption Fight
Ruihan Huang and Joshua Henderson, Marco polo, March 8, 2022
18. Union matchmakers a turn-off, say Chinese web users as birth rate debate heats up
Brenda Goh and Albee Zhang, Reuters, March 9, 2022
19. The Media Environment and Domestic Public Opinion in China Toward Russia’s War on Ukraine
Insikt Group, March 8, 2022
20. China's online pro-Putin fest drowns out anti-war sentiment
Marrian Zhou, Nikkei Asia, March 10, 2022
China's government is walking a fine line on Russia's invasion of Ukraine, stopping short of condemning Moscow but repeatedly calling for peace talks. A quick scroll through Chinese social media in recent days would suggest the public is much more pro-Russia than the official narrative.
ENVIRONMENTAL HARMS
Paul Harris, Hong Kong Free Press, March 11, 2022
“The Chinese government promotes overfishing around the world by helping to pay for the building of large long-range trawlers, providing fleets with forecasts of where and when certain species are most prevalent around the world, and providing tax exemptions and extensive subsidies, notably for fuel,” writes Paul G. Harris.
22. China’s clean energy conundrum
Nadya Yeh, SupChina, March 3, 2022
23. Asia’s big appetite for pangolins feeds relentless poaching in Africa
Pauline Kairu, The East African, March 12, 2022
According to records by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), between 2013 to 2017, when the up-listing of all pangolin species to Appendix I of CITES came into force, the amount of pangolin scales legally imported went from almost zero to nearly 13 tonnes, with four countries — Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Congo (Brazzaville) and Uganda — being responsible for the bulk of the shipments. China, UNODC says, was the importer of 99 percent of this volume.
24. Something fishy: Wildlife trafficking from Mexico to China
Vanda Felbab-Brown, Brookings, March 8, 2022
Wildlife trafficking from Mexico to China receives little attention, but it is growing and threatens biodiversity. Moreover, while the connections between wildlife trafficking and drug cartels are sometimes exaggerated, in Mexico, wildlife trafficking, drug trafficking, and money laundering have become intertwined. Attracted by China’s enormous appetite for wildlife products and in contact with Chinese traders supplying precursor chemicals for the production of illegal fentanyl and methamphetamine, Mexican drug cartels are increasingly muscling their way into the country’s legal and illegal wildlife trade.
This blog previews a detailed report of mine to be published by the Brookings Institution later this month. It is part of a Brookings series of reports and blogs on China’s role in wildlife, drug, and human trafficking. The report and blog are based on over 100 interviews I conducted between October and December 2021 in various parts of Mexico and via virtual platforms with China-, Asia-, and Europe-based counternarcotics, law enforcement, and government officials, business community representatives, investigative journalists, scholars, and environmental activists.
25. Low tide for local fishermen as trawlers harvest in high seas
Allan Olingo, The East African, March 12, 2022
26. Demand for Chinese Traditional Medicine Fuels Illegal Wildlife Trafficking in Africa
Miguel Brown, Nature World News, February 21, 2022
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE AND COERCION
27. China's state media buys Meta ads pushing Russia's line on war
Ashley Gold, Axios, March 9, 2022
Ads from Chinese state broadcaster CGTN are running on Meta-owned Facebook, targeting global users with pro-Russian talking points about Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Driving the news: Meta said last week it would ban ads from Russian state media and stop recommending content from such outlets. But that hasn't stopped countries close to Moscow, like China, from using their state channels to buy ads pushing a pro-Russian line.
28. Observatory Update: Mandarin-language Information Operations Regarding Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine
Doublethink Lab, March 2, 2022
29. How Is China Involved In Organized Crime In Mexico?
Nathaniel Parish Flannery, Forbes, February 23, 2022
Over the last few years China’s presence in Mexico has expanded in both legal and illegal activities. According to preliminary data, trade between China and Mexico topped $100 billion in 2021, a new record. Imports from China account for over 90% of total trade between China and Mexico. Chinese foreign direct investments in Mexico tallied $189 billion in 2020.
But, while legitimate commerce between Mexico and China is growing, Chinese groups are also becoming more involved in drug trafficking and money laundering in Mexico. In 2007, police in Mexico City seized $205 million in cash from a home owned by Chinese businessman Zhenli Ye Gong.
More recently, U.S. police have arrested several Chinese nationals for their involvement in sophisticated money laundering operations. In order to discuss China’s involvement in Mexico’s organized crime underworld, I reached out to Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington D.C.-based think tank. Felbab-Brown has been working on extensive research and field-work on the topic.
30. China pulls coverage of Premier League games this weekend over Ukraine support
Martyn Ziegler, Times of London, March 4, 2022
31. Beijing is re-writing the Ukraine narrative
Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, Axios, March 8, 2022
32. U.S. Slams China for Pushing Russia’s ‘Preposterous’ Lab Theory
Bloomberg, March 9, 2022
Washington criticized China and Russia for promoting a conspiracy theory that the U.S. military runs biolabs in Ukraine, escalating a dispute over attempts at misleading the public over the war in Europe.
“We took note of Russia’s false claims about alleged U.S. biological weapons labs and chemical weapons development in Ukraine,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement Thursday. “We’ve also seen Chinese officials echo these conspiracy theories.”
HUMAN RIGHTS AND RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
33. VIDEO – ‘The Xinjiang emergency’ – in conversation with Michael Clarke
University of Technology Sydney, March 2, 2022
The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is the site of the largest mass repression of an ethnic and/or religious minority in the world today with researchers estimating that at least one million people have been detained there at some point without trial since 2016. Meanwhile, outside of these detention centres more than ten million Turkic Muslim minorities are subjected to a network of high-tech surveillance systems, checkpoints and interpersonal monitoring.
34. Amazon suppliers linked to forced labor in China, watchdog group says
Louise Matsakis, NBC News, March 7, 2022
35. In Xinjiang, a new normal under a new chief — and also more of the same
Darren Byler, SupChina, March 2, 2022
36. U.N. Human Rights Chief to Visit China
Nick Cumming-Bruce, New York Times, March 8, 2022
The United Nations’ top human rights official said on Tuesday that China would allow her to visit the country and examine conditions there, including in the Xinjiang region, a startling twist after years of negotiations and stonewalling by Beijing.
If the visit goes ahead in May as expected, the official, Michelle Bachelet, will be the first United Nations high commissioner for human rights in 17 years to visit China, which has faced repeated criticism for its human rights policies.
The visit is not without risk for the high commissioner’s reputation. As the United Nations’ top rights official, with a mandate to “promote and protect the enjoyment and full realization, by all people, of all human rights,” Ms. Bachelet has spoken out effectively against violations in many countries but only timidly against China.
China has long faced criticism for its harsh treatment of dissidents, journalists and activists, but rights groups have said that conditions have sharply deteriorated since President Xi Jinping took power a decade ago.
37. Human-Rights Groups Worry U.N. Is Bowing to Beijing Over Xinjiang
Chao Deng, Wall Street Journal, March 9, 2022
Concern has grown among human-rights groups that the United Nations is deferring to Beijing in the organization’s response to China’s campaign to forcibly assimilate ethnic minorities in the country’s Xinjiang region.
A coalition of 192 human-rights organizations issued an open letter on Tuesday calling on the U.N. to publish a long-delayed report on Chinese government actions targeting Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim groups in Xinjiang.
The letter was delivered shortly after U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said her office had struck a deal with China for her to tour the country, including Xinjiang, likely in May.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch were among the groups that signed the letter, which called on Ms. Bachelet to release her team’s findings without further delay, “to send a message to victims and perpetrators alike that no state, no matter how powerful, is above international law or the robust independent scrutiny of your office.”
38. U.S. tells China to give UN access to Xinjiang to probe Uyghur treatment
Reuters, March 9, 2022
39. Demand for British solar panels spikes over Chinese slave labour fears
Samuel Webb, March 8, 2022
INDUSTRIAL POLICIES AND ECONOMIC ESPIONAGE
40. Foreign Companies in China Are Less Optimistic About Investing There
Dan Strumpf, Wall Street Journal, March 8, 2022
Foreign companies in China are feeling less confident about investing in China, citing concerns of slowing economic growth and political tensions with the U.S., an annual survey by an American business group found.
Less than one-half of members surveyed by the American Chamber of Commerce in China said they were optimistic that the Chinese government was committed to opening its market to more foreign investment over the next three years, down from 61% a year earlier. More than one-third said they would reduce investment in the country because of an uncertain policy environment.
41. Russia Can’t Fly Without the West—But May Eventually Propel China
Jon Sindreu, Wall Street Journal, March 8, 2022
Sanctions will devastate Russian aviation by denying it access to Boeing and Airbus parts. They will also give fresh impetus to efforts with China to develop alternatives to Western technology.
42. Chinese companies that aid Russia could face U.S. repercussions, commerce secretary warns.
Ana Swanson, New York Times, March 8, 2022
CYBER AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Jake Ryan, Daily Mail, March 6, 2022
44. Chinese Tech Firms Weigh Opportunities in Russia After Western Pullout
Dan Strumpf, Wall Street Journal, March 7, 2022
45. Two UK Huawei directors resign after company keeps silent on Russian attack
Chad Bray, South China Morning Post, March 10, 2022
MILITARY AND SECURITY THREATS
46. Russian Banks Turn to China to Sidestep Cutoff from Payments Systems
Patricia Kowsmann and Alexander Osipovich, Wall Street Journal, March 6, 2022
47. Quad leaders agree Ukraine experience should not be allowed in Indo-Pacific -Japan, Australia
Kiyoshi Takenaka, David Brunnstrom and Michael Martina, Reuters, March 3, 2022
ONE BELT, ONE ROAD STRATEGY
48. How China’s Ambitious Belt and Road Plans for East Africa Came Apart
David Skidmore, The Diplomat, March 5, 2022
OPINION PIECES
49. We Uyghurs Have No Say by Ilham Tohti review – a people ignored
Helen Kennedy, The Guardian, March 9, 2022
‘China’s Mandela’ draws attention to the shamefully overlooked plight of an ethnic group facing genocide
Only a few years ago the Uyghur minority in China was unknown to most people in the west. China’s record on human rights, however, was an open secret, albeit covered in a miasma of hypocrisy by foreign governments intent on expanding their trading opportunities. In the last few years the sites in Xinjiang province where the Uyghur Muslim people are detained have turned into something akin to concentration camps, with between 1 million and 3 million prisoners; the evidence points to a planned programme to erase an entire ethnic identity.
Recent years have seen more and more evidence of atrocities against the Uyghurs. As well as mass internment, there are accounts of forced labour, torture, death, disappearances, and the removal of children from their parents to orphanages in order to “de-racinate” them. Satellite and drone evidence has shown that mosques and Muslim burial grounds have been demolished. There are reliable reports of rapes, and of camp doctors sterilising Uyghur women. In 2020 the Jamestown Foundation released a report analysing Chinese government documents, including family planning records, which showed that between 2015 and 2018 forced sterilisations and abortions decreased the birthrate in two of the largest Uyghur prefectures by 84%.
We Uyghurs Have No Say comprises a set of essays and articles by the economist and social commentator described by some as “China’s Mandela”, Ilham Tohti, written before he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2014. They include a number preserved by dissidents after the website on which they were published was shut down. In his writings, he explains that discrimination against the Uyghur people is not a recent phenomenon, but nor was it always so. Although he is no champion of “command and control” government, he argues that in the period when there was a planned economy, resources were distributed more fairly and equally, creating a positive sense of equality among ethnic groups. The constitution of 1982 and a protective law introduced in 1984 made Xinjiang the Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), allowing its inhabitants to preserve their own written and spoken language, their customs, traditions and religious freedom, and giving them the right to hold key positions in local government.
50. China has little to gain but much to lose as Russia’s ally
George Magnus, The Guardian, March 4, 2022
In just a few days, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has upended decades of international relations thinking and practices. Nothing will be the same as before. Even the 5,000-word statement on “international relations in a new era” issued by China and Russia just a month ago in Beijing – to make the world safe for autocracy – has been overtaken by events. In this ugly Russian quagmire, China’s role and behaviour merit close attention, not least as we wonder whether Ukraine today may be Taiwan tomorrow.
China and Russia have been getting closer for some time. The binds are visible in bilateral trade, which has more than doubled since 2015 to almost $150bn. China is Russia’s biggest trade partner. While Russia is almost a rounding error in China’s global exports, the two countries collaborate in military exercises, regional security arrangements and technology trade. These binds go some way to counter other differences and long-standing sources of mistrust, for example over Russian far east and central Asia. Yet, the biggest bind of all is geopolitics.
Headed by control-obsessed dictators pledged to remain in power and protect their elites, they have both been gifted political opportunities created by, for example, the long tail of the 2008 “western” financial crisis, Brexit and European political weakness, Donald Trump, and Covid management issues in many democracies. They are joined at the hip in their pursuit of an anti-US and anti-western agenda in which they want to reshape the world order, including by force.
51. China's long game has just gotten a lot harder
Minxin Pei, Nikkei Asia, March 8, 2022
52. Only a Threat of Force Can Deter Autocrats Like Putin
Leonard Hochberg and Michael Hochberg, The American Spectator, March 7, 2022
53. What keeps China from stopping Russia's war
Ian Johnson, CNN, March 10, 2022
54. China cannot allow Putin to fail
Steve Tsang, The Telegraph, March 9, 2022
55. Xi is the only leader who can stop the war in Ukraine
William Hague, Times of London, March 7, 2022
If China doesn’t control the violent criminal in the Kremlin the outcome will be a rejuvenated West and stronger Taiwan
56. China’s Xi Jinping sits pretty amid carnage of Putin’s murderous assault
Jeremy Warner, Telegraph, March 5, 2022
57. The new US-Russia cold war will accelerate China's rise
Brahma Chellaney, The Hill, March 7, 2022