China Articles - May 29, 2022
Friends,
This week for the third time in the last nine months, President Biden made clear that if the PRC attacked Taiwan and attempted to annex the country by force, the United States would intervene.
Given the growing threat that the PRC poses to Taiwan and increasingly bellicose statements from leaders in Beijing, the Biden Administration likely judged that providing a degree of ‘strategic clarity’ about U.S. intentions serves the cause of strategic stability and deterrence better than maintaining ‘strategic ambiguity.’ [Note: this is the same argument that former Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo put forward in his recent OpEd]
For a few ‘old-school’ China Watchers, who have been steeped in the theology of Cross Strait Relations of the last four decades, this comes as quite a shock.
Predictably, the Chinese Communist Party howled in protest.
The Party decried how destabilizing President Biden’s statements were, claiming that statements like these will only instigate confrontation between the U.S. and the PRC. But of course, the threat of a disastrous war springs from the Party’s long-standing intention to use force to annex Taiwan NOT from Washington’s public commitment to aid in Taiwan’s defense.
The potential victim of aggression, and those who seek to deter that aggression, are not the instigators of war.
Beijing wants their victim of annexation to be isolated and demoralized. When countries like the United States, Japan and Australia express their willingness to deter Beijing’s aggression, the Party becomes furious.
Beijing, just like Moscow, portrays collective security by democracies as provocative, destabilizing and illegitimate (for Beijing, alliances and mutual security commitments are anachronisms of America’s ‘Cold War mentality’). When in fact, collective security is likely the only realistic deterrence against this kind of aggression by Beijing and Moscow.
Thanks for reading!
Matt
MUST READ
1. Biden Says U.S. Would Intervene Militarily if China Invaded Taiwan
Andrew Restuccia, Ken Thomas and Josh Chin, Wall Street Journal, May 23, 2022
Reporter: Mr. President, if you could tell us how the U.S. is prepared to respond, we would appreciate it.
Biden: Our policy toward Taiwan has not changed at all. We remain committed to supporting the peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and ensuring that there is no unilateral change of the status quo. I would add that [this is] one of the reasons why it is so important that Putin pay a dear price for his barbarism in Ukraine. . . . If, in fact, after all he's done there's a rapprochement between the Ukrainians and Russia, and the sanctions are not continued in many ways, then what signal does that send to China about the cost of attempting, attempting, to take Taiwan by force? They're already flirting with danger right now by flying so close and all the maneuvers they've taken.
But the United States is committed, we made a commitment. We support the One China policy, all that we have done in the past. That does not mean that China has the ability – excuse me, the jurisdiction, to go in and use force to take over Taiwan. So we stand firmly with Japan and other nations not to let that happen. And my expectation is that it will not happen, it will not be attempted. My expectation is that a lot of it depends upon just how strongly the world makes clear that that kind of action will result in long-term disapprobation by the rest of the community.
Reporter: Very quickly – you didn’t want to get involved in the Ukraine conflict militarily for obvious reasons. Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?
Biden: Yes.
Reporter: You are?
Biden: That’s the commitment we made. . . . That’s the commitment we made. . . . Here’s the situation. We agree with the One China policy. We signed onto it, and all of the attendant agreements made from there. But the idea that it [Taiwan] can be taken by force is just not appropriate. It would dislocate the entire region and be another action similar to what happened in Ukraine. So it is a burden that is even stronger.
COMMENT: This doesn’t appear to be a misstatement at all. President Biden makes clear that while the U.S. won’t formally recognize Taiwan, the U.S. would not sit idly by if the Chinese Communist Party launched an attack on Taiwan and attempted to annex the country by force.
2. The Volunteer Movement Enraging China
Timothy McLaughlin, The Atlantic, May 21, 2022
A loosely associated network has been translating publicly available speeches, articles and social-media posts from inside the PRC’s information ecosystem… demonstrating just how much the Chinese Communist Party seeks to exploit Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to undermine the United States and Europe. Unsurprisingly, Beijing is upset that anyone would dare to illuminate the Party’s hypocrisy.
3. WAY BACK MACHINE – Economists share blame for China’s ‘monstrous’ turn
Janos Kornai, Financial Times, July 10, 2019
Western intellectuals must now seek to contain Beijing
The leaders of modern China won’t be satisfied with turning their country into one of the leading powers of the multipolar world. Their aim is to become the hegemonic leader of the globe.
The idea is not, of course, to station Chinese soldiers everywhere. The means of domination would be different in each country, just as it was in the British empire of old. Some countries would literally be under military occupation. Elsewhere it would be enough to form governments compliant to Chinese wishes.
Chilling changes are taking place inside China. Former leader Deng Xiaoping sidestepped the question of capitalism versus communism, saying: “It does not matter if the cat is black or white so long as it catches mice.”
But it does matter to China’s present leader, Xi Jinping. He wants China to return to the classic communist system. His style is reminiscent of Stalinist times. Deng’s status as paramount leader was not codified in the legal system. But Mr Xi changed the law to allow to him to serve as president for life.
Mr Xi has required Communist party committees to be formed inside all sizeable institutions and companies. In certain areas, these can overrule management. Some readers may recall that during the civil war after the 1917 Soviet revolution, the commissar chosen by the party could oust the military commander appointed by the generals.
Show trials are going on, marked by the characteristics of modern China. Anybody can be taken to court for corruption. Some people really are corrupt, other cases are not so clear. Prisoners are being tortured and executions have become common again.
Thanks to the internet, the central government has not suppressed freedom of speech and press completely. Political discussions can take place in small groups, but the network of prohibitions is thickening, and the risks associated with criticism are growing.
Are not western intellectuals also responsible for this nightmare? We not only watched China’s transformation with approval but actively contributed to these changes. We are the modern version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the 19th-century tale of an experimenting scientist who brought a dead body to life using that era’s technology: the electric shock. The resurrected creature became a murderous monster.
Many of us already bear moral responsibility for not protesting against the resurrection of the Chinese monster, or even worse because we have taken on an active role as advisers. I include myself here: I took part in the Bashan conference in 1985. Seven western economists and leading Chinese policymakers were put on a luxurious boat floating on the Yangtze river. I lectured on how the country should be transformed into a market economy. When market reforms were taking off, my written and spoken ideas, including my book Economics of Shortage, had powerful effects.
I was not alone. Many other western intellectuals gathered at conferences and shared their thoughts. We all agreed that new life would be brought to China, which had frozen under Mao, by the electric shock of marketisation and private property. All of us who advocated this plan were Frankensteins. Now, the fearsome monster is here.
Many people ask “What should we do now?” Here are a few warnings. It is not possible to resist the Chinese expansion drive solely by raising tariffs. China is advancing on all fronts, by putting state of the art devices into the hands of the world’s biggest army. Beijing is also quick to innovate and to use new technology to influence the political and economic life of its rivals.
I oppose any government action and propaganda that treats individuals with suspicion on the basis of their facial features, family roots and genes. However, it is also a fact that the Chinese diaspora constitutes a huge pool of human resources from which the country’s leaders can select their own men.
Investors worldwide are enthusiastic about investing in China. In their eyes a stable dictatorship is a more secure environment than a wobbly democracy. Luckily other capitalists have more active consciences, and are motivated by human solidarity.
Everyone should think twice before helping China make devices which can be used in physical or digital warfare. The gates of universities should be open to Chinese students — except when they are seeking to learn how to build an arsenal for modern war.
Back in the 1940s, the US diplomat George Kennan argued that the best way to oppose communism was “containment”. This far and no further! Or more precisely: no further in this direction! What has happened already cannot be undone. But here we must stop, and we must take far more care to avoid carrying on in the role of Frankenstein.
The writer is an economics professor emeritus of Harvard University and Budapest Corvinus University.
Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, May 2022
Unprecedented evidence from internal police networks in China’s Xinjiang region proves prison-like nature of re-education camps, shows top Chinese leaders’ direct involvement in the mass internment campaign.
5. Trove of damning Xinjiang police files leaked as U.N. rights chief visits China
Lily Kuo and Cate Cadell, Washington Post, May 25, 2022
A cache of leaked documents detailing draconian surveillance and reeducation practices in Xinjiang has shed fresh light of the scale of Beijing’s multiyear crackdown on ethnic Uyghurs in the region and cast a shadow over a highly orchestrated six-day trip to China by the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet.
The files include thousands of mug shots of detainees held in a network of camps in Xinjiang, the youngest a 14-year-old girl, as well as details of police security protocols that describe the use of batons and assault rifles, methods of physically subduing detainees, and a shoot-to-kill policy for anyone trying to escape.
The trove of documents and images — published on Tuesday by Washington-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and a consortium of media including the BBC and USA Today — dates back to 2018 and includes policy notices and meeting notes that detail growing paranoia among Xinjiang officials over the ethnic Muslim Uyghur population and the formation of plans to carry out the mass detention program.
6. Handschellen, Kapuzen und „Tigerstühle“ – die Geheimakten von Xinjiang [Handcuffs, hoods and "tiger chairs" - the secret files of Xinjiang] – ORIGINAL IN GERMAN
Oscar Gutierrez and Patricia Blanco, Die Welt, May 25, 2022
Children behind bars, orders to shoot, torture: Documents have been leaked to several international media that prove how brutally and systematically China oppresses the Uyghur minority. They show the paranoia Beijing is driven by – and what their ultimate goal looks like.
AUTHORITARIANISM
7. It’s not easy staying green: Keeping out of China’s covid lockdown
Eva Dou and Pei-Lin Wu, Washington Post, May 24, 2022
China’s constant tests and status codes result in an endless struggle to maintain ‘green’ status or face social ostracism.
It sounds like a sci-fi movie: personal codes that grant you access to society or turn you into a pariah.
In China, this high-tech reality is here. These health mobile codes are updated in real time with your latest coronavirus test information and movements around town. Lose your green-code status, and you could be locked out of public spaces for days or weeks.
8. Covid shows that in China, politics matters more than pragmatism
The Economist, May 19, 2022
Admirers call China a pragmatic technocracy, COVID showed that politics come first.
China’s highest decision-making body, the Politburo’s standing committee, defensively declared on May 5th that relaxing controls would lead to “massive numbers of infections, critical cases and deaths”. This is correct, but ignores the extent to which it is the party’s fault. Abandoning pandemic controls risks disaster because China has a weak hospital system and old people with lots of chronic ailments. But above all, it is because China has not fully vaccinated 100m citizens over 60. This grave blunder blocks the easing of controls. In semi-autonomous Hong Kong, which follows some but not all of the mainland’s covid policies, an Omicron wave led to horribly high mortality rates. In all, 95% of the dead were people over 60 who had not been fully vaccinated.
Yet rather than set China’s propaganda juggernaut onto an all-out vaccination drive, leaders have wasted months. Resources have been poured into mass testing sites and what the head of the National Health Commission ominously calls “permanent” quarantine hospitals. China has not approved any mRNA vaccines, the most effective kind, essentially because the only two versions available are Western-made.
…
Self-interest undermines China’s “political meritocracy”
As a rule, when outsiders see Chinese officials apparently bent on self-harm, a likely explanation is that they are responding to incentives and priorities that only insiders fully appreciate. That is true of city- or district-level bureaucrats extending lockdowns or imposing more onerous controls than national-level guidance would seem to demand, even as the economy stalls. Such officials are in fact juggling contradictory orders from on high. Professional survival involves weighing which can hurt them personally. If everywhere has low economic growth, officials need not fear bad gdp numbers. As for vaccinating reluctant old people, that may be good for the country overall. But if an official upsets local families by forcing a shot on grandparents (and worse, if the old then die of an unrelated illness) then career-harming protests may follow. The most menacing order of all is the one threatening to sack officials with an outbreak on their watch. So they build more fences.
9. Moscow not sure it needs resumed ties with West, will work on ties with China – Lavrov
Lidia Kelly and Ronald Popeski, Reuters, May 24, 2022
10. ‘The Last Generation’: The Disillusionment of Young Chinese
Li Yuan, New York Times, May 24, 2022
Many believe that they’re the most unlucky generation since the 1980s as Beijing’s persistent pursuit of the zero Covid policy wreaks havoc.
Four years ago, many young Chinese liked to use the hashtag #Amazing China.
Two years ago, they said that China was the “A” student in pandemic control and urged the rest of the world, especially the United States, to “copy China’s homework.”
Now many believe that they’re the most unlucky generation since the 1980s as Beijing’s persistent pursuit of the zero Covid policy is wreaking havoc. Jobs are hard to find. Frequent Covid testing dictates their lives. The government is imposing more and more restrictions on their individual liberty while pushing them to get married and have more children.
“I can’t stand the thought that I will have to die in this place,” said Cheng Xinyu, a 19-year-old writer in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu, who is thinking of migrating to foreign countries before the government’s iron fist falls on her.
11. Foreign investors are fleeing China
The Economist, May 22, 2022
Xi Jinping’s policies are having a profound impact on markets—and a painful one
In little over a year Mr Xi’s policies have had a profound impact on global markets—and a painful one. They have knocked $2trn from Chinese shares listed in Hong Kong and New York. Chinese initial public offerings in these two cities have nearly ground to a halt this year. China’s property firms have sold just $280m in high-yield dollar bonds so far in 2022, down from $15.6bn during the same period last year, according to Dealogic, a data provider.
Within China, the value of yuan-denominated financial assets held by foreigners fell by more than 1trn yuan ($150bn) in the first three months of 2022, the biggest drop ever. The Institute of International Finance (iif), a bankers’ group in Washington, forecasts that a total of $300bn in capital will flow out of the country this year, up from $129bn in 2021.
12. As China Doubles Down on Lockdowns, Some Chinese Seek an Exit
Vivian Wang and Alexandra Stevenson, New York Times, May 20, 2022
13. China's international schools hit by exodus of teachers dejected by COVID curbs
Casey Hall, Reuters, May 20, 2022
After teaching for three years at an international school in Shanghai, Michael is preparing to break his contract and leave, worn down by stringent measures against the coronavirus.
Following two years of nearly-shut borders, onerous health checks and quarantine norms, a decision at the beginning of April to lock down China’s commercial centre proved the last straw for the 35-year-old.
"It has reached a point where the economic benefits of working here don’t make up for the lack of freedom to come and go," the science teacher said, declining to give his full name for reasons of privacy.
Michael is one of hundreds of international teachers heading for the exits as the COVID-19 pandemic and new rules on education reshape the working environment in China.
The situation is prompting international schools that proliferated over the past two decades, as China opened up to foreign investment and talent, to sound warning bells.
Some find their survival is now on the line, while the quality of education stands to suffer in the long run.
14. Tencent Billionaire Airs Frustration During China’s Slowdown
Bloomberg, May 23, 2022
15. China's Weibo bans Trip.com co-founder who questioned zero-COVID strategy
Sophie Yu, Reuters, May 24, 2022
A leading entrepreneur in China who had questioned the wisdom of the country's zero-COVID strategy was banned from posting on Weibo, with the social media platform accusing Trip.com (9961.HK) co-founder James Liang of violating laws.
ENVIRONMENTAL HARMS
16. China needs Russian coal. Moscow needs new customers
Laura He, CNN, May 20, 2022
China is buying record amounts of cheap Russian coal, even as Western nations slam Moscow with sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine.
In April, not only did the world's second largest economy buy more coal from Russia than ever before, it also eliminated import tariffs on all types of coal, a move analysts say will mainly benefit Russian suppliers.
China's coal imports from Russia nearly doubled between March and April, reaching 4.42 million metric tons, according to trade data from Refinitiv. Russia has overtaken Australia as China's second biggest supplier since last year and now accounts for 19% of its coal imports, up from the 14% share it had in March.
The booming coal trade boosts both sides. Despite bold pledges to tackle the climate crisis, China is now focused on getting its economy out of a slump and needs coal to fuel power stations and make steel for infrastructure projects. Russia desperately needs new customers for its fossil fuels as they are shunned by the West.
17. China Carbon Market Has New Woes with Prices Already Flatlining
Bloomberg, May 20, 2022
Latest emissions allowances haven’t been released as officials tackle issues including data fraud.
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE AND COERCION
18. The Justice Department takes on China's overseas repression
Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, Axios, May 24, 2022
In a string of recent indictments, the U.S. Department of Justice is cracking down on Chinese state-backed repression of U.S.-based dissidents.
Why it matters: The Chinese government has spent decades harassing and trying to silence its critics abroad. Now the U.S. government is taking action to protect people on U.S. soil.
What's happening: Earlier this month, the DOJ announced it had charged a U.S. citizen and four others with a scheme that involved collecting information on U.S.-based pro-democracy activists, human rights groups and members of ethnic communities often targeted by the Chinese government, including Uyghurs and Tibetans.
19. South Korea looks to break China import dependence and establish ‘supply chain alliances’
Kim Bo-eum, South China Morning Post, May 20, 2022
South Korea under president Yoon Suk-yeol is seeking to diversify trade away from China and boost ties with other economies in the Indo-Pacific.
20. Czechs considering 'all options' regarding China's 16+1 group
Jan Lopatka, Reuters, May 20, 2022
The Czech Republic is considering "all options" concerning its engagement with the China-led 16+1 platform for cooperation with central and east European states, the Foreign Ministry said on Friday.
Several past Czech governments as well as President Milos Zeman have been keen to deepen ties with China, but the interest has cooled since a series of failed Chinese investment projects, Czech warnings against Chinese 5G telecoms technology and a change of government in Prague last year.
"The main initiatives of 16+1, economic diplomacy and the promise of massive investments and mutually beneficial trade, are not being fulfilled even after 10 years," minister Jan Lipavsky said in comments to news agency CTK, sent by the ministry's spokeswoman to Reuters.
The statement followed a Czech lower house of parliament foreign committee's call on the cabinet on Thursday to quit the group.
The new Czech centre-right cabinet has pledged to build up relations with democracies including self-ruled Taiwan - which China sees as a breakaway province - and put its China policies under review.
"The unfulfilled promises lead to the consideration of all options of our future role in the platform," he said.
"The government, in its manifesto, announced its intention to revise our relations with China. Our approach to 16+1 and its future is a part of this process."
HUMAN RIGHTS AND RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
21. Hacked Data Shows Ethnic Abuse in China’s Xinjiang Camps
Bloomberg, May 24, 2022
Tens of thousands of seemingly hacked files from China’s remote Xinjiang region provide fresh evidence of the abuse of mostly Muslim ethnic Uyghurs in mass detention camps there, which included a shoot-to-kill policy for escapees, according to a report from a rights group.
The “Xinjiang Police Files,” published Tuesday by the Washington-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and shared with a consortium of global media outlets, detail how Uyghurs and other minorities are mistreated while held in camps that Beijing calls re-education centers.
22. The faces from China’s Uyghur detention camps
John Sudworth, BBC, May 2022
23. ‘China is harvesting hair and organs from the Uyghurs – it’s a slow-motion genocide’
Harry de Quetteville, The Telegraph, May 22, 2022
Lilian Cheng, South China Morning Post, May 24, 2022
Hong Kong Catholic diocese reveals decision on Tuesday, saying there are ‘different ways to remember the deceased’
Residents can still make bookings at Victoria Park from June 1 to 5 for football games, Leisure and Cultural Services Department says
Brian Wong, South China Morning Post, May 24, 2022
Retired Hong Kong Catholic leader Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun and five other activists have denied charges for allegedly failing to register a legal defence fund that provided financial help to protesters facing trouble stemming from the 2019 social unrest.
INDUSTRIAL POLICIES AND ECONOMIC ESPIONAGE
26. Red Ink: Estimating Chinese Industrial Policy Spending in Comparative Perspective
Gerard DiPippo, Ilaria Mazzocco, Scott Kennedy and Matthew Goodman, CSIS, May 23, 2022
27. Chinese Bonds Suffer Third Straight Month of Foreign Outflows
Rebecca Feng and Serena Ng, Wall Street Journal, May 18, 2022
28. US Growth Seen Outpacing China’s for First Time Since 1976
Tom Hancock and Chris Antsey, Bloomberg, May 20, 2022
Bloomberg Economics sees China slowing to 2% on Covid curbs
Such a growth rate would be weakest since Cultural Revolution
29. Pessimism engulfs the Chinese economy as foreign investment fades
Financial Times, May 20, 2022
30. China Stocks Face Big Risk as Thousands of Hedge Funds Near Point Where They Have to Dump Shares
Bloomberg, May 20, 2022
31. Airbnb is closing its domestic business in China, sources say
Deirdre Bosa, CNBC, May 23, 2022
32. China Faces Growing Pressure to Iron Out Audit Deal with the U.S.
Jing Yang and Paul Kiernan, Wall Street Journal, May 24, 2022
If Beijing wants to make sure its companies aren’t kicked off American exchanges next year, it might have just weeks left to reach an agreement.
Time is running out for Beijing to reach a deal with Washington to prevent mass delistings of Chinese companies whose shares trade on U.S. exchanges.
After more than a decade of standing in the way of U.S. regulatory inspections of Chinese companies’ auditors, authorities in China have been unusually vocal in recent months about their desire to resolve what has become a major drag on overseas-listed Chinese stocks like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Baidu Inc.
The change in tone has come as a three-year countdown for China to comply with the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act of 2020 looks increasingly likely to be shortened. Striking and executing any deal would entail a lengthy process, and the new timetable could see U.S. stock-trading bans for some Chinese companies starting as early as next March.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission, the agency coordinating Chinese government responses to the talks, has issued multiple statements this year signaling that progress has been made in negotiations with their U.S. counterparts.
In a statement to The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, the CSRC said: “China and the U.S. maintain close communications and are committed to reaching collaborative arrangements that comply with both countries’ laws and regulations. Overall, the negotiation process is going smoothly.”
The Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. accounting regulator, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, on the other hand, have been more cautious about the prospect of any deal being reached and then implemented.
“We continue to meet and engage with PRC authorities, and speculation about a final agreement remains premature,” the PCAOB said in a statement to the Journal, referring to the People’s Republic of China. “It is important to note that reaching an agreement, while an important and necessary first step, will not alone satisfy the requirements of the HFCAA,” the statement said.
The core issue is whether China will allow the PCAOB to routinely inspect the auditors of U.S.-listed Chinese companies, a 20-year-old requirement under U.S. law for all companies whose shares trade on American exchanges. China has long argued that unfettered access to the audit papers could threaten its national security, as some of the companies are state-owned, do business with state-owned companies, or hold large amounts of data on Chinese citizens.
Beijing’s expansive view of what constitutes a national-security risk is one reason for the impasse. For instance, unadulterated information from large Chinese companies could provide insights into the nation’s economy that aren’t apparent in China’s tightly controlled official data.
Separately, YJ Fischer, director of the SEC’s international-affairs office, said in a speech Tuesday: “Any claim that audit work papers cannot be produced because they contain national-security materials is questionable at best.” She added that attempts to solve the problem have failed.
Given the challenges, Ms. Fischer said a possible workaround might be for China to voluntarily delist a subset of companies that it considers sensitive while bringing the remainder of firms into compliance with PCAOB standards. The Journal previously reported such an option was being considered.
“The SEC has offered to work with Chinese authorities in whatever decision they make, including ensuring a smooth transition for China-based issuers if they have to leave U.S. markets,” Ms. Fischer said.
CYBER AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
33. Canada to ban China's Huawei and ZTE from its 5G networks
Annabelle Liang, BBC, May 20, 2022
Canada says it will ban two of China's biggest telecoms equipment makers from working on its 5G phone networks.
The restrictions against Huawei and ZTE were announced by the country's industry minister on Thursday.
Francois-Philippe Champagne says the move will improve Canada's mobile internet services and "protect the safety and security of Canadians".
MILITARY AND SECURITY THREATS
34. VIDEO – Biden vows to intervene militarily if China invades Taiwan
Nick Schifrin and Ivan Kanapathy, PBS NewsHour, May 23, 2022
35. China seeks more island security pacts to boost clout in Pacific
Kathrin Hille, Demetri Seveastopulo and Edward White, Financial Times, May 20, 2022
China is intensifying its drive for influence in the Pacific by negotiating security deals with two additional island nations following a pact with the Solomon Islands, according to officials in the US and allied countries.
Beijing’s talks with Kiribati, a Pacific island nation 3,000km from Hawaii where US Indo-Pacific Command is based, are the most advanced, the officials said.
“They are in talks with Kiribati and at least one more Pacific island country over an agreement that would cover much of the same ground as that with Solomon Islands,” said an intelligence official from a US ally.
The warning that Beijing is trying to further increase its clout in the Pacific came as President Joe Biden begins a visit to Asia intended to reassure allies of US commitment to regional security amid China’s push for influence.
36. Russia, China conduct first joint military drill since Ukraine invasion
Ellen Nakashima, Michelle Ye Hee Lee, and Min Joo Kim, Washington Post, May 24, 2022
Russia and China flew strategic bombers over the Sea of Japan and East China Sea while President Biden was in Tokyo on Tuesday, their first joint military exercise since the invasion of Ukraine and a pointed signal to the administration as it seeks to solidify regional alliances amid the growing strategic partnership between Moscow and Beijing.
The White House promptly condemned the air exercise. “This … shows that China continues to be willing to closely align itself with Russia, despite the brutality that Russia is committing in Ukraine,” said a senior Biden administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.
The two countries have conducted joint exercises before, but “this is the most significant form of cooperation by their militaries” since Feb. 24, when Russia invaded Ukraine, the official said.
37. Russia and China Held Military Exercise in East Asia as Biden Visited
Edward Wong, New York Times, May 24, 2022
The coordinated bomber flights were the first training activity the two nations had done together since President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia ordered the invasion of Ukraine.
ONE BELT, ONE ROAD STRATEGY
38. East Timor’s new president pledges stronger ties with China
Nelson Da Cruz, Reuters, May 19, 2022
39. China becomes wild card in Sri Lanka’s debt crisis
Bharatha Mallawarachi, Krutika Pathi and Joe McDonald, Associated Press, May 20, 2022
China says its initiative to build ports and other infrastructure across Asia and Africa, paid for with Chinese loans, will boost trade. But in a cautionary tale for borrowers, Sri Lanka’s multibillion-dollar debt to Beijing threatens to hinder efforts to resolve a financial crisis so severe that the Indian Ocean nation cannot import food or gasoline.
Sri Lanka’s struggle is extreme, but it reflects conditions across dozens of countries from South Pacific islands through some of the poorest in Asia and Africa that have signed onto Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative. The total debt of poor countries is rising, raising risks others might run into trouble.
Sri Lanka’s 22 million people are in dire straits. Foreign currency ran out in April, leading to food shortages, power cuts and protests that forced a prime minister to resign. Payment on $51 billion of debt to China, Japan and other foreign lenders was suspended.
Sri Lanka and other poor Asian countries welcome Chinese financing. The Asian Development Bank says the region needs to invest $1.7 trillion a year in infrastructure to keep economies growing. But some, including Sri Lankan critics of their government’s spending, say Chinese-led projects cost too much or do too little for their economies.
COMMENT: Yet more evidence of the ‘debt trap’ nature of the Chinese Communist Party’s development model of loaning money to developing countries to pay Chinese infrastructure companies to build infrastructure in those countries without transparency and little thought to how those countries will repay the loans on infrastructure that often fails to deliver the promised returns. The Chinese Communist Party absolutely hates media reports like this as it undercuts the message that Beijing wants to show the world.
OPINION PIECES
40. America, China, Russia and the Avalanche of History
Niall Ferguson, Bloomberg, May 20, 2022
The world doesn’t move in cycles or with a grand design. Echoes of the 1970s remind us that one disaster often begets others.
Does the arc of history bend toward justice? Or is everything falling apart?
Philosophers of history have long sought a cycle of history. Ibn Khaldun offered one version in his “Muqaddimah” (1377): Islam in its infancy has “desert toughness” — but power leads to sedentary habits and luxury, while extravagance leads to fiscal crisis.
Oswald Spengler offered an alternative model in “The Decline of the West” (1918), in which the rise and fall of civilizations resembles the seasons. In our time, a number of writers have proposed their own cyclical theories, ranging from William Strauss and Neil Howe’s “The Fourth Turning” (1997) to the financier Ray Dalio’s recent “The Changing World Order.”
An alternative approach is the notion that history has some purposeful direction and ultimate destination. In a recent essay, Francis Fukuyama reasserted his old claim that history tends towards the triumph of liberal-democratic capitalism and the nation-state. In his words, “there is, indeed, an arc of history, with justice as its terminus.”
This bold assertion is hard to reconcile with the perception of those who follow trends in mass psychology, social media and education that democracy is in the grip of a “stupefaction process” (Jonathan Haidt’s phrase) in the US and elsewhere.
I disbelieve in both cycles of history and ends of history. History is the interaction of many complex systems. There are certain long-run processes (notably exponential gains in productivity through the development of technology and the “suprasecular” decline of nominal and real interest rates as a result of capital accumulation) punctuated by, well, one disaster after another. These disasters are either randomly distributed or follow a power law (i.e. there are lots of little earthquakes, pandemics or wars, but a few cataclysmic ones).
At unpredictable intervals, the global system is tipped into a major transition by a disturbance that can be quite small, if not quite as small as Edward Lorenz’s famous butterfly in the Amazon setting off a tornado in Texas. Russia’s war in Ukraine — destructive certainly, but still a relatively small conflict by 20th-century standards — can be enough to trigger a “conflict avalanche.”
In the same way, a belated tightening of monetary policy by the world’s most important central bank, the Federal Reserve, inflicts a sort of regime change not only on US households and businesses, but on the rest of the world, too. All the consequences of these two shocks — one geopolitical, the other economic — are very hard indeed to predict, but I am confident that we have seen only a small proportion of them so far.
There is quite a bit more trouble ahead before we perceive the restoration of “normality,” which is a term we use loosely to mean something like a period of more than one year during which economic, social and political events do not diverge too radically from the average of the previous 10 years.
41. Biden is right to say the U.S. should defend Taiwan
Henry Olsen, Washington Post, May 23, 2022
President Biden’s declaration on Monday that the United States would defend Taiwan if China attacks is just the latest sign he is shifting U.S. policy toward confronting and containing the Communist nation. That’s the right approach, and he needs to rearm faster and maintain U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods to make it stick.
The United States has long practiced “strategic ambiguity” with respect to Chinese designs on Taiwan. Foreign policy strategists have believed this would effectively deter an invasion while maintaining relations with Beijing. So long as China acted in a positive manner, this was a defensible strategy.
But Chinese President Xi Jinping’s increasingly aggressive behavior makes the policy untenable. Taiwan, like Ukraine in Europe, is a flash point in a contest between the United States and an autocratic power. If the United States chose not to aid Ukraine in its time of need, our European allies — who recognized the threat a Russian-conquered Ukraine would pose to their security — would question our commitment to them. So it is with Taiwan; if the United States won’t defend a longtime, democratic friend, other allies in Asia would call our commitment into question.
Biden’s public commitment is something Japan, our most important ally in the northern Pacific region, has wanted to hear. Former prime minister Shinzo Abe specifically called for this immediately following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Former Japanese deputy prime minister Taro Aso also said Japan would consider a Chinese invasion of Taiwan a direct threat. It is surely no coincidence that Biden made his statement in Tokyo at a joint news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. This reassures Japan that its own military buildup to counter China’s threat will be part of a concerted, U.S.-led effort.
42. Biden’s Real Taiwan Mistake
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal, May 23, 2022
43. The Ukraine Crisis: Implications for U.S. Policy in the Indo-Pacific
Dan Blumenthal, AEI, May 19, 2022
44. Risch, Cantwell Encourage POTUS to Pursue Stronger Indo-Pacific Strategy
Senators Jim Risch (R-ID) and MariaCantwell (D-WA), U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, May 19, 2022
45. If you have a 401(k), you’re an investor. Geopolitics will affect your financial security
Jacob Shapiro, Big Think, May 20, 2022
In the 1990s, globalization became the new world religion.
Today, globalization is reversing, and we are entering into a "multipolar" world, in which the U.S. is no longer the single, dominant power.
Geopolitics is about to become much more volatile. We must plan our financial investments accordingly.
46. Two Strong Hands: China’s vision for the private sector
Chang-Tai Hsieh, The Wire China, May 22, 2022
47. We Don’t Need No (British) Education in China
Matthew Brooker, Bloomberg, May 24, 2022
These aren’t great days to be in the international school business in China. Teachers are leaving, and getting visas for replacements is difficult. Those that remain are contending not only with the threat or actuality of Covid lockdowns, but with increased scrutiny amid an atmosphere of tightened regulation and rising nationalism. After a decade of explosive growth, it’s difficult to be optimistic about the outlook.
Harrow Beijing being forced to drop the British name of its bilingual school is just the latest sign of the cooling climate for foreign education providers. That branding is an essential part of the value proposition for Chinese parents looking to set their children on track for admission to prestigious overseas universities. The 450-year-old Harrow is among the most famous of British schools, having educated seven U.K. prime ministers including the most celebrated of all, Winston Churchill (albeit he was reputedly a bad student while there). Lide, the bilingual school’s new name, doesn’t have quite the same resonance.
48. Cardinal Zen’s arrest and the Vatican’s muted, dangerous dance with China
Christopher R. Altieri, The Catholic World Report, May 12, 2022
The Chinese now know they can arrest a Prince of the Church, confiscate his passport, and hold him for a few hours’ close questioning, without eliciting the naked ire of the Vatican.
The most striking thing about the arrest of Cardinal Joseph Zen, SDB, in Hong Kong on Wednesday is the anodyne statement from the Vatican regarding the news. At least, the muted response from Holy See press office director Matteo Bruni was the most striking thing, until the Cardinal-Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin, offered what in other circumstances would have been obiter dicta perhaps worthy of mention on a slow news day.
Cardinal Zen is Bishop-emeritus of Hong Kong. His name is well known even to casual consumers of Church news, but may be familiar also to general readers of news in big national and international papers. Zen is an outspoken critic of both the Communist government on the Chinese mainland and of the Holy See’s provisional accord with the China’s repressive totalitarian regime.
National security police took Cardinal Zen in for questioning on Wednesday in Hong Kong, reportedly along with at least three other people with whom he had worked at the defunct 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, a charitable outfit that offered financial support for legal defense to democracy advocates on the island. The police released Cardinal Zen and the others later on Wednesday, after several hours’ detention. Authorities confiscated their passports.
Vatican News said the other persons were lawyer Margaret Ng, activist and pop singer Denise Ho, and former academic Hui Po-keung. Police said they were arrested on charges of “collusion with foreign forces.” That is a crime under the far-reaching “national security” legislation the mainland imposed on Hong Kong in 2020, in an effort to quash democracy agitation after the mainland practically abandoned its “one country, two systems” policy and undertook a crackdown on the island that has garnered international condemnation.
“The Holy See has learned with concern the news of Cardinal Zen’s arrest,” Bruni told journalists late Wednesday afternoon, hours after journalists had confirmed the arrest. Bruni said the Holy See “is following the evolution of the situation with extreme attention.”
Not even a “not the done thing” from the Third Loggia or any other Vatican quarter. “Extreme attention” is stronger than “some attention” but isn’t quite the expression of alarm or indignation one may reasonably expect under the circumstances. To paraphrase an old Vatican hand with whom I spoke shortly after the statement’s release: One could imagine stronger words from the Holy See were an Italian cardinal denied service in a Roman eatery.