China Articles - March 20, 2022
Friends,
The Must Read (Listen) for the week’s issue includes two podcast episodes: Bari Weiss’ “Things Worth Fighting For” and the interview of Isaac Stone Fish by Graeme Smith and Louisa Lim on “Little Red Podcast.”
You should also read Adam O’Neal’s interview of Matt Pottinger on Russia, China and the New Cold War.
Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian reports in Axios about a group of Chinese international students at Cornell University that harassed a Uyghur student who was describing during a lecture how her brother was being held in a concentration camp.
Also included is an OpEd by Ulnur Bozhykhan who describes how her parents and relatives are being threatened by the Chinese Communist Party after she went public about the torture and rape she suffered while being held for nearly a year in a Xinjiang concentration camp.
The Chinese-American community suffered a terrible loss this week when Jinjin “Jim” Li was stabbed to death in his New York office by a young woman named Xiao Ning Zhang. Mr. Li had been a Tiananmen Square protester who was jailed for 22 months and then sought asylum in the United States 1993. He went on to become a prominent immigration lawyer who tirelessly aided thousands of individuals from the Asian-American community become American citizens.
Thanks for reading!
Matt
MUST READ
1. AUDIO – Things Worth Fighting For: What we can learn from President Zelensky.
Bari Weiss, Honestly, March 16, 2022
…
Do we root for Russia, and its partners in Beijing and Tehran, or do we cheer on Zelensky, and with him London, Paris, and Washington, D.C.? Do we imagine a future in which each citizen is closely monitored by the state, assigned a social score and tracked by tech giants that record her every move, or would we prefer free and unfettered speech and respect for privacy? Are we ok with concentration camps for religious minorities and corporations whose profits are downstream of genocide, or do we believe that every human life is sacred?
Do we say, sorry we can’t do anything about the Chinese Communist Party, it is too strong and we are too intertwined and the price would be too high. Or do we say: no. That’s not true. Look at what Churchill did in 1940. Look what Zelensky is doing right now. Look what a nation can achieve when the stakes are their highest, when their hearts and minds are focused on one mission.
Do we believe in nation-states with sovereignty, or land grabs and might making right? Do we fight for civilization or do we resign ourselves to decline? Do we insist that nothing is destined, that the choice of decline or ascendance is ours?
I know what I choose.
…
2. Russia, China and the New Cold War
Adam O’Neal and Matt Pottinger, Wall Street Journal, March 18, 2022
“When Xi Jinping gives speeches—especially important ones and ones where he is laying out an aggressive case for Chinese actions in this de facto cold war that he’s waging—those speeches are kept secret, but they’re not kept secret forever,” [Matt Pottinger] says. “They surface in Chinese-language-only party publications. More often than not, those speeches are ignored by Western analysts, news reporters and even intelligence agencies.”
An example is a November 2021 address in which Mr. Xi said, in Mr. Pottinger’s paraphrase, “that the Korean War was an act of enormous strategic foresight by Comrade Mao Zedong, as he calls him in the speech. It’s a recurring theme in a lot of Xi’s speeches, the idea that China now needs to study the spirit of that war.”
Mr. Xi laid out what Mr. Pottinger describes as almost a case for pre-emptive war: “He says that Mao Zedong in that war had the strategic foresight to, quote, ‘start with one punch so that 100 punches could be avoided.’ He talked about how Mao had the determination and bravery to adopt an attitude of not hesitating to ruin the country”—that is, China—“internally in order to build it anew.” Mr. Pottinger puts this in contemporary terms: “The attitude of being willing to destroy institutions, companies, attitudes and even political norms is something that neither Xi nor the Communist Party that he leads should shy away from.”
3. Chinese students at Cornell "taunt" Uyghur classmate during event
Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, Axios, March 15, 2022
A group of Chinese international students at Cornell University booed and left an event last week in protest after a Uyghur student spoke about her brother's detention amid the Chinese government's genocide in Xinjiang.
4. I Told My Story in Bitter Winter, the CCP Is Taking Revenge on My Relatives
Ulnur Bozhykhan, Bitter Winter, March 17, 2022
On February 7, 2022, Xinjiang concentration camp survivor Ulnur Bozhykhan went public about the torture and rape she suffered while being held. Bozhykhan describes how her parents and other relatives are now being harassed and threatened by Chinese Communist Party officials to silence her.
5. AUDIO – Elite Capture: A CCP Primer in Making Friends and Influencing People
Graeme Smith and Louisa Lim interview Isaac Stone Fish, Little Red Podcast, March 9, 2022
America's elites love to talk about China's '5000 years of civilization', but such language - which could come straight from the pages of the China Daily - serves to amplify Beijing's talking points. In this way and due to their own business dealings with China, some American elites are helping Beijing grow more powerful. In his book, America Second: How America's Elites Are Making China Stronger, journalist Isaac Stone Fish zeroes in on the case of the former US secretary of State Henry Kissinger, casting him as an agent of Chinese influence.
6. US Alleges ‘Transnational Repression’ Scheme Involving China’s Secret Police
Shannon Tiezzi, The Diplomat, March 17, 2022
On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice held a press conference to announce cases against five individuals charged with “stalking, harassing, and spying on U.S. residents on behalf of the PRC secret police.” The five individuals – named as Fan “Frank” Liu, Matthew Ziburis, Shujun Wang, Qiming Lin, and Qiang “Jason” Sun – are alleged to have worked with China’s Ministry of State Security – the civilian intelligence agency – to commit “transnational repression,” attempting to silence individuals residing the United States who were or are critical of the Chinese Communist Party. Three of the defendants have been arrested; Lin and Sun remain at large.
“The Ministry of State Security is more than an intelligence collection agency. It executes the Chinese government’s efforts to limit free speech, attack dissidents, and preserve the power of the Communist Party,” said Assistant Director Alan E. Kohler Jr. of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division in a statement. “When it exports those actions overseas, it violates the fundamental sovereignty of the United States and becomes a national security threat.”
“The complaints unsealed today reveal the outrageous and dangerous lengths to which the PRC government’s secret police and these defendants have gone to attack the rule of law and freedom in New York City and elsewhere in the United States,” added U.S. Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York.
AUTHORITARIANISM
7. Saudi Arabia Considers Accepting Yuan Instead of Dollars for Chinese Oil Sales
Summer Said and Stephen Kalin, Wall Street Journal, March 15, 2022
8. China has already decided to send economic aid to Russia in Ukraine conflict, US officials fear
Julian Borger, The Guardian, March 14, 2022
Jake Sullivan’s Rome meeting with Chinese counterpart left US officials pessimistic about steering Beijing away from backing Moscow.
China has already decided to provide Russia with economic and financial support during its war on Ukraine and is contemplating sending military supplies such as armed drones, US officials fear.
The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, laid out the US case against Russia’s invasion in an “intense” seven-hour meeting in Rome with his Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi, pointing out that Moscow had feigned interest in diplomacy while preparing for invasion, and also that the Russian military was clearly showing signs of frailty.
9. China wanted to appear neutral between Russia and Ukraine. It isn’t
Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times, March 13, 2022
10. China warns of retaliation if hit by Russia sanctions fallout
William Langley, Tom Mitchell and Sun Yu, Financial Times, March 15, 2022
11. Rollback of Xi Jinping’s Economic Campaign Exposes Cracks in His Power
Lingling Wei, Wall Street Journal, March 15, 2022
12. China Tries to Shift Attention as U.S. Presses It on Ukraine
Lingling Wei, Wall Street Journal, March 14, 2022
13. Under New Scrutiny: China’s Nuclear Pledge to Ukraine
James T. Areddy, Wall Street Journal, March 11, 2022
David Bandurski, China Media Project, March 12, 2022
While for much of the world the conflict in Ukraine is “Russia’s war,” Chinese media have opted for other terms, including “special military operation.” In this closer look at Chinese media coverage, we document this official framing — but also find some surprising and encouraging exceptions.
15. On China’s Internet, Rare Flash of Anger at Beijing’s Position on Ukraine
Wenxin Fan, wall Street Journal, March 16, 2022
16. China Launches Investigation into Official Who Promoted Respect for Islam
Josh Chin, Wall Street Journal, March 17, 2022
China’s Communist Party has authorized a corruption inquiry into a senior official who was previously an influential advocate of Muslim culture, according to people familiar with the matter, in a signal of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s resolve to push ahead with the country’s aggressive ethnic assimilation efforts.
Wang Zhengwei, a member of China’s Muslim Hui minority and currently a vice chairman of China’s top political advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Congress, is under investigation by the party’s internal disciplinary watchdogs for abuse of power and corruption, the people said.
The investigation was prompted by concerns that Mr. Wang had promoted “unrestrained Muslim culture” and encouraged religious extremism when he served as Communist Party chief of his home region of Ningxia in China’s northwest and later as head of the National Ethnic Affairs Commission, the agency in charge of implementing ethnic policy, the people said.
ENVIRONMENTAL HARMS
17. After Battling Power Shortages, China Reignites Mothballed Coal Plants
Chen Xuewan and Guo Yingzhe, Caixin, March 17, 2022
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE AND COERCION
18. U.S. Fights Bioweapons Disinformation Pushed by Russia and China
Edward Wong, New York Times, March 10, 2022
One of Russia’s most incendiary disinformation campaigns ramped up days ago, when its defense and foreign ministries issued statements falsely claiming that the Pentagon was financing biological weapons labs in Ukraine.
Then Chinese diplomats and state media organizations repeated the conspiracy theory at news conferences in Beijing, in articles and on official social media accounts.
Now, the Biden White House has taken the extraordinary step of calling out both countries on their coordinated propaganda campaign and saying they might be providing cover for a potential biological or chemical weapons attack on Ukrainians by the Russian military.
19. China’s tech platforms become propaganda tools in Putin’s war
Edward White, Financial Times, March 11, 2022
The Ukraine invasion is casting an unflattering light on the role of China’s private technology groups, including Tencent, Sina Weibo and ByteDance, in disseminating official misinformation, posing difficult compliance issues for the companies’ foreign investors.
The internet platforms of tech giants in China are promoting content backing Russian president Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine while suppressing posts that are sympathetic to Kyiv, potentially conflicting with international funds’ corporate and social responsibility commitments and public statements against the war.
In the conflict’s opening days, Beijing followed Moscow in blaming the US for instigating the crisis. False reports of Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky fleeing Kyiv and Ukrainian troops surrendering were shared widely in China. This week, Russian disinformation reports of US-run biological laboratories in Ukraine with “large quantities of dangerous viruses” were repeated by China’s foreign ministry spokesperson and state media.
“The Chinese market is uninvestable from an ESG perspective,” said Félix Boudreault, managing director of Sustainable Market Strategies, an environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) investment research group.
Many of the companies most popular with investors were subject to strict state controls, said Boudreault, adding that tech and media companies were “extremely vulnerable to the strike of a pen from a Chinese bureaucrat”.
20. Chinese plot to smear US Congress hopeful unveiled
BBC, March 16, 2022
21. British publishers censor books for western readers to appease China
Oliver Telling, Financial Times, March 15, 2022
References to Taiwan, Hong Kong and other subjects deemed sensitive by Beijing are excised.
Two British publishers have censored books intended for western readers to ensure they can be printed cheaply in China, in the latest instance of companies yielding to Beijing’s restrictions on free speech.
Octopus Books, part of literary empire Hachette, and London-listed Quarto have removed references to Taiwan and other subjects banned by Chinese authorities from several books, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The revelations follow a string of censorship controversies in the publishing sector. In 2017, academic publishers Springer Nature and Cambridge University Press were criticised after it emerged they had each blocked hundreds of articles from being accessed in China.
But evidence obtained by the Financial Times gives the first indication that books sold in the west are also being amended to appease Beijing.
Since 2020 Octopus, a self-described “leading publisher of non-fiction”, has removed references in at least two books to Taiwan, a democratic nation that China claims as its territory. In one case, an entire section relating to Taiwan was cut.
Over the same period Quarto, a picture book publisher that in 2020 released the New York Times bestseller This Book is Anti-Racist, erased mentions of Hong Kong and dissident artist Ai Weiwei from separate publications.
The nationality of people mentioned in one book was also changed from Taiwanese to East Asian, while references to Tibet, a region annexed by China in 1951, were revised in two books to suggest it was Chinese territory.
Both Octopus and Quarto have censored books after suppliers in China, which face legal restrictions on what they can print, said they were unable to publish the original text. The people familiar with the changes did not want to publicise the names of books affected as this could risk anonymity, but the FT has seen documents confirming the edits were made.
“Why do they still choose China to print the books for a cheaper cost, as they understand the law and restrictions on content?” asked Rose Luqiu, a journalism professor at Hong Kong Baptist University. She added that the controversy was just the latest “profit-driven” example of “how foreign companies proactively co-operate with censorship”.
Publishers across the industry told the FT that printing in China, where production fees are lower than elsewhere, has grown increasingly difficult.
Last year US printing company RR Donnelley & Sons distributed a memo seen by the FT, saying that its Chinese printers were unable to produce books mentioning human rights abuses in Xinjiang and suggestions that Covid-19 originated in China.
The people familiar with the matter said Quarto and Octopus have printed particularly sensitive books outside China, but cost pressures dissuaded them from doing so for all publications.
“[Octopus Books] don’t agree with it on a moral level. But [the company] does not disagree enough to increase the price of [its] books,” said a Hachette employee, who did not want to be named.
Publishing is supposed to be an “industry of ideas”, so censorship feels particularly “insidious”, the person added.
A spokesperson for Quarto said the publisher did not make changes at the request of suppliers and always protects the editorial integrity of its books.
But, the spokesperson added, the company had “a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of our shareholders” and work with suppliers in China who “consistently deliver” value for money.
A spokesperson for Octopus Books said any books where sensitive details are relevant to the text are not printed in China. Changes that are made “are not material and we always ask the permission of the author first to check they are comfortable to proceed”.
A spokesperson for RR Donnelley said the company operated one of the largest print networks in the world and “in situations where materials are, or may be, rejected, we may offer alternative manufacturing locations”.
22. Hong Kong Officials Threaten British Activist with National Security Law
Elaine Yu, Wall Street Journal, March 14, 2022
23. China Canceled H&M. Every Other Brand Needs to Understand Why
Bloomberg, March 14, 2022
24. ‘I’m on the frontline in Mariupol’: the Chinese reporter embedded with Russian troops
Helen Davidson, The Guardian, March 16, 2022
25. Yoon's pledge to boost THAAD missile system risks China reprisal
Steven Borowiec, Nikkei Asia, March 16, 2022
26. Prosecutors accuse China of campaign to spy on and harass dissidents in US
The Guardian, March 16, 2022
27. Olympian Alysa Liu and father targeted in Chinese spy operation, says US Justice Department
South China Morning Post, March 17, 2022
US Olympic figure skater Alysa Liu and her father Arthur Liu – a former political refugee – were among those targeted in a spying operation that the US Justice Department alleges was ordered by the Chinese government, the elder Liu said.
Arthur Liu said he had been contacted by the FBI last October, and warned about the scheme just as his 16-year-old daughter was preparing for the Winter Olympics in Beijing in February. He said he did not tell his daughter about the issue so as not to scare her or distract her from the competition.
“We believed Alysa had a very good chance of making the Olympic Team and truly were very scared,” Arthur Liu said.
The Justice Department announced charges earlier on Wednesday (US time) against five men accused of acting on behalf of the Chinese government for a series of brazen and wide-ranging schemes to stalk and harass Chinese dissidents in the United States.
Arthur Liu said he and his daughter were included in the criminal complaint as “Dissident 3” and “family member”, respectively.
He said he took a stand against China’s bullying by allowing his daughter to compete at the recent Olympic Winter Games, where she placed seventh in the women’s event.
“This is her moment. This is her once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to compete at the Olympic Games. I’m not going to let them stop her from going and I’ll do whatever I can to make sure she’s safe and I’m willing to make sacrifices so she can enjoy the moment,” Arthur Liu said. “I’m not going to let them win – to stop me – to silence me from expressing my opinions anywhere.”
The father said he agreed to let his daughter compete with assurances from the State Department and US Olympic Committee that Alysa Liu would be closely protected and kept safe while competing in China. They said she would have at least two people escorting her at all times.
“They are probably just trying to intimidate us, to … in a way threaten us not to say anything, to cause trouble to them and say anything political or related to human rights violations in China,” Arthur Liu said. “I had concerns about her safety. The US government did a good job protecting her.”
Arthur Liu said a man called him in November claiming to be an official with the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, and asked for his and his daughters’ passport numbers. Arthur Liu refused to provide them and said he would call his contact at Team USA the next day.
“I didn’t feel good about it. I felt something fishy was going on,” Arthur Liu said. “From my dealings with the US Figure Skating association, they would never call me on the phone to get copies of our passports. I really cut it short once I realised what he was asking for.”
The US Olympic and Paralympic Committee could not immediately be reached for comment. A spokesman for US Figure Skating deferred comment to Team USA.
Arthur Liu does not remember being approached in person by Matthew Ziburis, who was arrested Tuesday on charges that include conspiring to commit interstate harassment and criminal use of a means of identification. Ziburis was released on a US$500,000 bond.
Prosecutors allege that Ziburis was hired to perform surveillance on the family and pose as a member of an international sports committee to ask Arthur Liu for a copy of his and Alysa Liu’s passports by claiming it was a travel “preparedness check” related to Covid-19. The complaint said when Arthur Liu refused, Ziburis threatened to delay or deny them international travel.
The elder Liu said he left China in his 20s as a political refugee because he had protested against the Communist government following the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. Arthur Liu eventually settled in the Bay Area, put himself through law school and nurtured one of America’s most promising athletes.
His daughter visited their ancestral homeland for the first time while at the Olympics. Arthur Liu said his daughter has generally been warmly embraced by Chinese fans and media, who considered Alysa Liu to be one of their own.
But through the spying investigation, he learned that China was aware of an Instagram message about human rights violations against the ethnic minority Uygurs that his daughter once posted. During the Games, Alysa Liu also told her father that she was approached by a stranger late one night at a cafeteria after the free skate event, and that the man followed her and asked her to come to his apartment.
“I’ve kind of accepted my life to be like this because of what I chose to do in 1989, to speak up against the government. And I know the Chinese government will extend their long hands into any corner in the world,” Arthur Liu said.
“I’m going to continue to enjoy life and live life as I want to live. I’m not going to let this push me down and I’m not going to let them succeed.”
HUMAN RIGHTS AND RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
28. ‘We’ll kill you’: Uyghur exile who fled to Arctic Circle still fears reach of Chinese state
Isobell Crockerell, The Guardian, March 15, 2022
In a remote corner north of the Arctic Circle, Memettursun Omer gazes out the window at the swirling snowstorm outside as the tinny voice of a Chinese official blares from the mobile phone in his hand.
An Uyghur Muslim from China’s remote north-west Xinjiang region, Omer has travelled about as far as he can go to escape the Chinese authorities – to the small Norwegian town of Kirkenes.
So far, he says, they have always managed to find him. On dozens of messages left on his phone since he left China, voices he says are those of Chinese agents wheedle, cajole and threaten. “We didn’t send you out there so you could behave like this,” drawls an official in one recording. “You’re forgetting who you are.”
Four years before, Omer says he was sent by the same handlers to Europe on a secret mission: to infiltrate and spy on Uyghur groups who were drawing attention to the human rights abuses being perpetrated against millions of their community and other ethnic minorities.
Months before he left, Omer had been detained by the Chinese state after returning from working abroad. He says he was tortured, beaten and interrogated about his connections in Europe before being put through months of grooming, brainwashing and threats. Eventually, his handlers decided he had become a loyal Chinese citizen, willing to do the state’s bidding.
29. Disney accused by activist shareholder of 'complicity in China genocide'
Breck Dumas, Fox Business News, March 11, 2022
30. Go Sherab Gyatso: Prominent Tibetan Monk Tortured in Jail
He Yuyan, Bitter Winter, March 11, 2022
Human rights activists are denouncing on social media that a well-known Tibetan monk’s health is seriously deteriorating as a result of torture he is subjected to in Lhasa’s Qushui Prison.
Go Sherab Gyatso is a monk born on September 9, 1976, in Khashi village, Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, an autonomous prefecture in Sichuan province that has a majority of Tibetan inhabitants. It is also known as the world capital of self-immolation by Tibetans who set themselves on fire to protest CCP oppression.
Go Sherab Gyatso became a monk in the autonomous prefecture, and later went to Lhasa to continue his Buddhist studies. He became well-known as an author and lecturer on Tibetan Buddhism in Sichuan and beyond.
He was first arrested in 1998, as he refused to participate in forced political indoctrination imposed on Buddhist monks in Sichuan, and sentenced to three and a half years in jail. He was abused in prison and contracted chronic lung disease.
In 2008, during the crackdown on Tibetan monks and activists aimed at preventing protests during the Beijing Olympics, he was arrested again and kept in prison for another year.
In 2011, he was arrested for the third time for having criticized CCP’s policies in his articles and books. In 2013, upon his release, he was allowed to attend Sun Yat-sen University in Guangdong to study Western philosophy.
On October 26, 2020, he was arrested again under the accusation of “separatism.” That he had been arrested and why was only confirmed by the Chinese government after it received a letter from the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances In 2021, Go Sherab Gyatso was tried in Lhasa, Tibet, and sentenced to ten years.
In jail, treatments for his lung disease are not adequate and his health is deteriorating, which led international NGOs to advocate for his release. News that he is being tortured in prison have now surfaced on social media through credible sources, making the popular monk’s situation even worse.
31. Hong Kong threatens British human rights activist
Harry Zeffman, Times of London, March 14, 2022
INDUSTRIAL POLICIES AND ECONOMIC ESPIONAGE
32. Revising Down the Rise of China
Roland Rajah and Alyssa Leng, Lowy Institute, March 15, 2022
The future of China’s ongoing global rise is of great importance to both China and the rest of the world. Predicting long-term economic performance is inherently difficult and open to debate. Nonetheless, we show that substantial long-term growth deceleration is the likely future for China given the legacy effects of its uniquely draconian past population policies, reliance on investment-driven growth, and slowing productivity growth.
Even assuming continued broad policy success, our projections suggest growth will slow sharply to roughly 3% a year by 2030 and 2–3% a year on average over the three decades to 2050. Growing faster, up to say 5% a year to 2050, is notionally possible given China remains well below the global productivity frontier.
However, we also show that the prospect of doing so is well beyond China’s track record in delivering productivity-enhancing reform, and therefore well beyond its likely trajectory. China also faces considerable downside risks.
33. Taiwan raids 8 Chinese tech companies over alleged talent poaching
Lauly Li and Cheng Ting-Fang, Nikkei Asia, March 9, 2022
34. Italy annuls sale of military drones firm to Chinese investors, sources say
Giuseppe Fonte, Angelo Amante and Gavin Jones, Reuters, March 10, 2022
35. As Xi forges own path, China plays down Deng's economic policy
Tsukasa Hadano, Nikkei Asia, March 11, 2022
36. China's ZTE headed to court over possible U.S. probation violation
Karen Freifeld, Reuters, March 14, 2022
37. Reports Questioning Strong China Growth Deleted from WeChat
Bloomberg, March 17, 2022
CYBER AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
38. How the CAC [Cyberspace Administration of China] became Chinese tech’s biggest nightmare
AJ Caughey and Shen Lu, Protocol, March 11, 2022
39. FCC revokes U.S. authorization of China telecom Pacific Networks
Nikkei Asia, March 17, 2022
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Wednesday voted to revoke the authorization for Chinese telecom Pacific Networks and its wholly owned subsidiary ComNet to provide U.S. telecommunications services.
The 4-0 vote to revoke the authority that had been granted in 2002 is the latest move by the American regulator to bar Chinese telecommunications carriers from the United States citing national security concerns. The FCC said Pacific Networks and ComNet are indirectly and ultimately owned and controlled by the Chinese government.
MILITARY AND SECURITY THREATS
Insikt Group, March 10, 2022
41. Chinese Navy Growth: Massive Expansion of Important Shipyard
H.I. Sutton, Naval News, March 15, 2022
42. Ukraine invasion forces Washington’s Asia allies to rethink their security
Kathrin Hille, Leo Lewis, Nic Fildes and Christian Davies, Financial Times, March 11, 2022
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has spurred some of Washington’s closest allies in Asia to harden their stance against China and bolstered voices in Japan’s ruling party who argue the country should consider hosting US nuclear weapons.
The shift in thinking in Japan, Australia and South Korea is raising fears of heightened tension in a region that is already home to several of the world’s most dangerous flashpoints.
“It is a major wake-up call. War has not gone away. There’s no denial of that any more,” Rory Medcalf, head of the National Security College at the Australian National University, said of the fallout of the Ukraine invasion on the region.
In Japan, senior figures in the ruling Liberal Democratic party said it had prompted a historic shift in thinking within its ranks, which they also believed, though some way off, would eventually be shared by the public.
In the past, Japanese citizens had felt their safety was guaranteed by the US and through Tokyo’s policy of strictly limiting the capability of the country’s self-defence forces and restricting its overseas activities. But now voters were more likely to take a “practical and realistic” view of what Japan needed to protect itself from a changing threat, argued the senior LDP figures, speaking in an off-record briefing.
“The old way of thinking about things is dying out. Japan is becoming more pragmatic about the security debate,” said one person in the top echelons of the LDP.
ONE BELT, ONE ROAD STRATEGY
43. Security Clearance: The private security companies protecting China's interests abroad.
Katrina Northrop, The Wire China, March 13, 2022
OPINION PIECES
44. China and the United States: It’s a Cold War, but don’t panic
Robert Daly, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 10, 2022
Two years, one pandemic, a change of American administrations, and a brutal war in Ukraine later, the relationship is above the foothills and nearing the summit. Cold War framing, which I believed was dangerous one year ago, now seems inevitable. This is tragic, but the phrase has the virtue of focusing our attention.
45. China is squirming under pressure to condemn Russia. It can’t hold out forever
Richard McGregor, The Guardian, March 11, 2022
Beijing is struggling to settle on a clear message over Ukraine because it is trying to reconcile the irreconcilable
46. Don’t Count on China to Mediate the War in Ukraine
Kevin Rudd, Wall Street Journal, March 15, 2022
47. A Legal Settlement Shows the Risks of Doing Business in China
Jillian Kay Melchior, Wall Street Journal, March 14, 2022
China lacks the rule of law, but that doesn’t stop Chinese companies from taking advantage of the U.S. legal system. A California bankruptcy court judge last week approved a settlement agreement between the state-owned Aviation Industry Corp. of China, or AVIC, its subsidiaries and two American entities and their co-claimants. After years of litigation and under some duress, the Americans agreed to walk away with less than a third of the more than $85 million they were owed under an arbitrator’s judgment.
48. China is complicit in Russia’s war on Ukraine
Marco Rubio, Washington Post, March 18, 2022
The Chinese Communist Party has a long list of sins, including the systematic repression of basic human rights, industrial espionage, the use of slave labor and genocide. Now, the CCP’s complicity in the atrocities Russia is committing in Ukraine can be added to that list.
Twenty-one years ago, China signed a “Treaty of Friendship” with Russia. It might have started as a marriage of convenience, but that relationship has grown only stronger over time, through cooperation at the United Nations, energy deals and military exercises. Earlier this year, the two nations pledged an unprecedented level of cooperation and coordination. And over the past few weeks, Beijing has enabled Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression.