Matt Turpin's China Articles - August 6, 2023
Friends,
I’ve been on vacation on the North Shore of Oahu this week, so the commentary is a bit shorter than usual.
Thanks for reading!
Matt
MUST READ
1. China accused of using ‘wrecking tactics’ at climate talks
Attracta Mooney, Aime Williams, and Edward White, Financial Times, July 28, 2023
China has obstructed G20 climate negotiations, refusing to debate crucial issues such as greenhouse gas emissions targets, according to several people familiar with the talks.
The people said Beijing’s stance was backed up by Saudi Arabia, putting in jeopardy hopes of concluding an agreement on ending fossil fuel use and boosting renewable energy.
“I’ve never seen such wrecking tactics employed at a multilateral meeting before,” said one person at the negotiations in Chennai in India, the current holder of the G20 presidency.
Another person familiar with the talks described the Chinese negotiator at the talks, which ended on Friday, as a “one-man wrecking ball”.
China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to questions.
“We simply are nowhere,” said Virginijus Sinkevičius, EU environment commissioner, referring to leading economies’ efforts to address climate change. Between them, the G20 nations are responsible for about 80 per cent of global emissions.
Those present said China argued the G20 was an economic forum and should not be the venue for climate change policy. Beijing also pushed back on proposed trade restrictions to deal with climate change, such as tariffs on imported carbon-intensive goods.
The country rejected calls for economy-wide targets to reduce total emissions by almost half by 2030, as well as an agreement for global emissions to peak by 2025. Such targets are intended to limit global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels; the temperature rise so far is at least 1.1C, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has found.
At a tense press briefing after the meetings ended, Bhupender Yadav, India’s environment minister, highlighted agreement on land and ocean conservation, and avoided questions about the lack of consensus on fossil fuels and renewable energy.
The G20 meetings are intended to help pave the way for the UN COP28 climate summit in the UAE later this year. But so far, they have highlighted the difficulties in reaching an accord.
A participant in the discussions described China’s stance, backed by Saudi Arabia, as “stunning” and “increasingly obstructive”. They added that if the countries impeding the talks were not “willing to shift, then the world has a real problem”.
COMMENT – We’ve seen this before from the Chinese Communist Party… 14 years ago at the Copenhagen Climate Conference. See Mark Lynas’ account in The Guardian titled, “How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room” (December 22, 2009).
Worth considering Lynas’ last three paragraphs:
All this raises the question: what is China's game? Why did China, in the words of a UK-based analyst who also spent hours in heads of state meetings, "not only reject targets for itself, but also refuse to allow any other country to take on binding targets?" The analyst, who has attended climate conferences for more than 15 years, concludes that China wants to weaken the climate regulation regime now "in order to avoid the risk that it might be called on to be more ambitious in a few years' time".
This does not mean China is not serious about global warming. It is strong in both the wind and solar industries. But China's growth, and growing global political and economic dominance, is based largely on cheap coal. China knows it is becoming an uncontested superpower; indeed its newfound muscular confidence was on striking display in Copenhagen. Its coal-based economy doubles every decade, and its power increases commensurately. Its leadership will not alter this magic formula unless they absolutely have to.
Copenhagen was much worse than just another bad deal, because it illustrated a profound shift in global geopolitics. This is fast becoming China's century, yet its leadership has displayed that multilateral environmental governance is not only not a priority, but is viewed as a hindrance to the new superpower's freedom of action. I left Copenhagen more despondent than I have felt in a long time. After all the hope and all the hype, the mobilisation of thousands, a wave of optimism crashed against the rock of global power politics, fell back, and drained away.
2. BlackRock, MSCI Face Congressional Probes for Facilitating China Investments
Kate O’Keeffe and Corrie Driebusch, Wall Street Journal, August 1, 2023
The world’s largest asset manager and a top stock-market-index compiler are being investigated by a congressional committee for facilitating American investment in Chinese companies the U.S. government has accused of bolstering China’s military and violating human rights.
The House of Representatives’ Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party notified BlackRock and MSCI on Monday of the probes into their activities, according to letters viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
While the committee doesn’t have lawmaking authority, it does have subpoena powers and has garnered bipartisan support for its initiatives. The goal of the investigation is to gather facts that would inform the U.S.’s China policies, including on American capital flows.
The panel told the firms that a review of just a sliver of their activities—which aren’t illegal—showed that they are causing Americans to fund more than 60 Chinese companies that U.S. agencies have flagged on security or human-rights grounds.
By routing “massive flows of American capital” to such Chinese entities, the U.S. firms are “exacerbating an already significant national-security threat and undermining American values,” said the letters, signed by the panel’s chairman, Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, and its top Democrat, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois. Across five funds, BlackRock has invested more than $429 million in such Chinese companies, the panel found.
COMMENT – These accusations aren’t new, folks on both sides of the political spectrum have accused BlackRock of purposefully ignoring its own ESG priorities to pursue investments in the PRC (see “BlackRock’s China Blunder,” George Soros, WSJ, September 6, 2021 and “Consumers' Research blasts BlackRock's Larry Fink for going 'all-in on China',” Fox Business, February 10, 2022).
Up until now, the SEC and the Treasury have refused to take these issues seriously. Any investigation into BlackRock is bound to become sensitive to the Biden Administration since it contains quite a few BlackRock alum. Those include the Deputy Treasury Secretary, Wally Adeyemo (who was Larry Fink’s Chief of Staff from 2017 to 2019), the Acting Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at Treasury, Eric Van Nostrand (who was BlackRock’s head of research for sustainable investments and multi-asset strategies), and the Vice President’s economic advisor and now Deputy National Security Advisor, Michael Pyle (who was BlackRock’s global chief investment strategist). The President’s former Director of the National Economic Council, Brian Deese, was also a BlackRock executive after leaving the Obama Administration and before joining the Biden Administration.
BlackRock even has a former National Security Advisor on staff as the head of BlackRock’s Investment Institute, Tom Donilon, who served as President Obama’s second NSA.
That’s a lot of senior officials who were responsible for BlackRock investment decisions who should have known better.
To give BlackRock some credit, they have begun to sound the alarm to their clients about the increasing likelihood that the PRC will attack Taiwan and that the Sino-American relationship is turning more hostile. BlackRock’s latest “Geopolitical Risk Dashboard” (July 25, 2023) listed this as the #1 most likely risk that its clients should prepare for (#2 was a Russia-NATO conflict… and #9 was climate policy gridlock).
Makes one wonder why BlackRock isn’t doing more to mitigate what it thinks is most likely risk, while it expends so much effort on what it rates as the nineth out of 10 most likely risks.
[NOTE: take a look at the disclaimer at the top of the “Geopolitical Risk Dashboard”, apparently this update cannot be publicly distributed in the PRC… if you go to the last page and read the fine print, it says:
“In China, this material may not be distributed to individuals resident in the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”, for such purposes, excluding Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan) or entities registered in the PRC unless such parties have received all the required PRC government approvals to participate in any investment or receive any investment advisory or investment management services”… this looks like DECOUPLING to me.]
As for MSCI, they have had their share of scrutiny as well. In early 2019, the Wall Street Journal broke the story that MSCI had been coerced by the PRC Government to add it’s A-Shares to their index, facilitating tens of billions of dollars from American investors to flow into China through passive investing (“How China Pressured MSCI to Add Its Market to Major Benchmark,” Mike Bird, WSJ, February 3, 2019).
3. Soft power: Communist China’s linguistic expansion sweeps the Middle East
Ahmad Hashemi, The Hill, August 1, 2023
Iran’s President, Ebrahim Raisi, endorsed a law last month that adds Chinese to the list of foreign languages that can be taught in Iranian middle and high schools.
This move comes at a time when there is great sensitivity about teaching Western languages in Iran. English is especially stigmatized as a conduit for the West’s “cultural invasion.” After Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei criticized the teaching of English in 2016, Iran imposed a ban on teaching English at primary schools. The endorsement of the Chinese language as an alternative builds upon that.
Yet the expansion of Mandarin Chinese and its inclusion in school curricula is not limited to Iran. It is occurring all over the Middle East, not as a purely cultural or even economically driven measure. Rather, it is part of a new China-led civilizational, cultural and geopolitical genesis.
Sinification is nothing new. It is a process by which non-Chinese societies or groups are acculturated or assimilated into the language, culture, and social norms of the Han Chinese, the largest ethnic group in China. Yet large-scale Sinicization as an expansionist policy is the modern invention of President Xi Jinping.
Under Xi’s rule, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has stepped up measures to spread standard Mandarin at home and abroad as an instrument of soft power and political influence. Driven by Chinese nationalism, the Xi regime is seeking to assimilate and Sinicize ethnic minorities within China by actively seeking to eradicate the language and culture of Turkic Uyghurs in East Turkestan, Mongol residents of Inner Mongolia, and Tibetans. This is part of a broader plan to consolidate power that includes the complete subjugation of Hong Kong, the conquest of Taiwan, and the conversion of the South China Sea into a Chinese lake.
COMMENT – As mass protests erupt across the Middle East against Sweden and Denmark over isolated cases of Koran burning, the elites in these same countries embrace the PRC, even as it systematically erases Islam in China and commits genocide against Uyghur Muslims.
4. Let the Tragedy in My Homeland Be a Lesson
Tahir Hamut Izgil, New York Times, July 28, 2023
About seven years ago, people around me started disappearing.
It began slowly, quietly. The editors of a well-known literature textbook were suddenly nowhere to be found. A friend of mine left for work and never came home.
My family and I are Uyghurs, and at the time we were living in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in northwest China. The political situation in our region had been growing gradually more tense for several years, but still, we hoped and assumed that these disappearances were isolated incidents.
Pretty soon, however, the scope of what was happening became terribly clear.
Since 2017, the Chinese government has carried out a program of mass internment in my homeland. In that time, over one million people — Uyghurs and members of other Muslim minorities — are estimated to have been placed in concentration camps referred to as “re-education centers.”
Some of my friends who disappeared in the early stages of this campaign were, we later learned, arrested and sentenced to lengthy prison terms. Others seemingly vanished without a trace.
5. The Central Asia Squeeze
Isaiah Schrader, The Wire China, July 30, 2023
Xi Jinping spoke slowly and carefully as he addressed the inaugural China-Central Asia Summit in May. With the flags of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan draped neatly behind him, China’s paramount leader described the need to “renew our millennia-old friendship and open up new vistas for the future.”
Xi was leaning heavily on China’s historical ties to the region, choosing to host the summit, for instance, in Xi’an, the eastern terminus of the ancient Silk Road and what Xi called “an important cradle of the Chinese civilization and nation.” Thanks to its New Silk Road Economic Belt, part of the Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing has invested heavily in Central Asia over the past decade, although its relationship with the region has undergone some strain in recent years due to China’s strict Covid policies, which partially froze the nations’ trade.
With the first ever China-Central Asia Summit, Xi was in Xi’an to make nice — and also to capitalize on an opportunity.
“Transformations of the world unseen in a century are unfolding at a faster pace,” he told the Central Asian leaders. “The international and regional situation is undergoing complex and profound changes.”
Xi wasn’t exaggerating. Until recently, Russia has been the undisputed power in the region, with the Central Asian nations culturally and linguistically tied to Moscow. But with their giant northern neighbor distracted and seemingly weakened from its invasion of Ukraine, the five countries are experiencing something of a power vacuum — one China, their giant eastern neighbor, might be interested in filling.
“The pattern now for about ten years has been that China has been displacing Russia as both the top trade partner and the top source of foreign investment in Central Asia,” says Jeffrey Mankoff, a senior associate with the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the author of Empires of Eurasia: How Imperial Legacies Shape International Security. “But the things that have happened [with Russia] over the last 15 months have reinforced these developing historical patterns. Russian influence has taken a hit, and it’s a hit that it’s probably not going to recover from.”
6. VIDEO – How Heidelberg University became entangled in China's quantum strategy
DW Documentary, July 26, 2023
DW's investigative team and the German investigative newsroom CORRECTIV have delved into the history of a remarkable scientific partnership that has spanned two decades. This partnership revolves around the fascinating field of quantum physics, which has the potential to impact human rights and alter the balance of power between China and the US.
At the center of this collaboration is the venerable Heidelberg University, along with its honorary professor Pan Jian-Wei, who was recognized as one of the world's 100 most influential people by the renowned US news magazine, Time, in 2018.
Since 2003, there has been a continuous exchange of knowledge between Germany's oldest university and Professor Pan in the field of quantum research. However, experts have cautioned about the potential military applications of quantum technology.
Our research has led us deep into the realm where academic freedom collides with national security interests.
Authoritarianism
7. China wants to mobilise entire nation in counterespionage
Reuters, August 2, 2023
China should encourage its citizens to join counter-espionage work, including creating channels for individuals to report suspicious activity as well as commending and rewarding them, the state security ministry said on Tuesday.
A system that makes it "normal" for the masses to participate in counter-espionage must be established, wrote the Ministry of State Security, the main agency overlooking foreign intelligence and anti-spying, in its first post on its WeChat account, which went live on Monday.
The call to popularise anti-spying work among the masses follows an expansion of China's counter-espionage law that took effect in July.
The law, which bans the transfer of information related to national security and interests which it does not specify, has alarmed the United States, saying foreign companies in China could be punished for regular business activities.
The revised law allows authorities carrying out an anti-espionage probe to gain access to data, electronic equipment, and information on personal property.
COMMENT – Don’t travel to the PRC.
8. The Covid Cover-Up
National Review, August 1, 2023
9. China’s new Patriotic Education Law reveals Xi’s deepest fears for the future
Kathy Huang and Kay Zou, The Wire China, August 1, 2023
Last month, a draft of the “People’s Republic of China Patriotic Education Law” was introduced to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislative body. The expansive law contains 37 clauses that set forth the enforcement of patriotic education in a variety of institutions, including schools, religious communities, businesses, and families.
The new law codifies existing practices, but more importantly, it expands its scope to include Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, overseas Chinese, and the internet. In short, it indicates what the Chinese Communist Party feels are its biggest vulnerabilities for the future control of China: the youth, cyberspace, and Chinese communities beyond the mainland.
A tried-and-true tactic
Since its founding, the People’s Republic of China has promoted several ideological indoctrination campaigns, the most extensive being the patriotic education campaign of the 1990s.
In the aftermath of the Tiananmen massacre, the Chinese state recognized that the demise of Communist ideology internationally and democratic tendencies domestically threatened the foundation of its legitimacy. The Party turned to state-led nationalism to revive its popularity. The campaign, which gained full momentum in the fall of 1994, focused on re-educating the youths, who led the Tiananmen protests. It contained three broad goals: the institutionalization of patriotic education, the reforms in history education, and the construction of patriotic public monuments.
To a great extent, the campaign was successful in raising a generation of outspoken patriots who, unlike their parents, never experienced the turmoil of the early People’s Republic, yet benefited greatly from China’s booming economy and rising international influence.
Since his inauguration, Xí Jìnpíng has reaffirmed efforts of the earlier patriotic education campaign while adding his vision of the “China Dream,” portraying China as a global power that is seizing back its place from foreign encroachment, into the narrative. He has also established himself as the authority of everything, instilling Xi Jinping Thought into all aspects of education at all levels.
Despite these earlier efforts, this new Patriotic Education Law is significant as the first effort to codify patriotic education practices into law, making it worth a closer look.
…
Implications
The new draft law has been met with criticisms and doubts from citizens online. On the Chinese internet forum Zhīhū 知乎, people responded to the draft law with anger and derision. One user wrote, “I am genuinely terrified,” and another pointed to the hypocrisy of Chinese government officials who send their children abroad while still expecting Chinese people to be patriotic.
Chinese politics at the top level is opaque, especially on the question of whether public sentiment influences policy. The scope and depth of the draft Patriotic Education Law, however, reveals that the leadership is well aware of the Party’s biggest vulnerabilities: its wavering popularity among youths, the extent of its power in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, its influence on overseas Chinese, and the internet.
This rare glimpse into the top leader’s deepest concerns should inform policymakers that the Communist Party’s China is not impregnable. Like any other authoritarian regime, the Party and the leader face popularity crises, despite how they would like the world to believe otherwise.
China is not as cohesive as the Party presents itself, and the success of past patriotic education campaigns should not be regarded as a guarantee for the future. With changing domestic reality and new methods to access information, the implementation and efficacy of the new law are still in question.
10. Beijing pushes for Hong Kong’s leader to attend Apec summit in US
Chan Ho-Him and Edward White, Financial Times, July 28, 2023
China says John Lee should get invite to economic gathering after report suggests he would be barred entry.
COMMENT – Let’s hope the Administration sticks to its principles and denies John Lee an invitation.
11. Judge Rejects Bid to Ban “Glory to Hong Kong” From Internet
Tiffany May, New York Times, July 28, 2023
12. ‘Absolute loyalty’: Xi Jinping turns anti-corruption focus to China’s military
Kathrin Hille and Edward White, Financial Times, July 31, 2023
13. China Replaces Missile Commander Days After Removing Foreign Minister
Alastair Gale and Chun Han Wong, Wall Street Journal, August 1, 2023
14. China Cancels TEDx Event Over Foreign Influence Concerns
Bloomberg, July 31, 2023
15. Watching China in Europe - August 2023
Noah Barkin, German Marshall Fund of the United States, August 1, 2023
One thing seems sure: Europe will need years, not months, to finalize the policy changes that von der Leyen is seeking. Getting big things done before elections to the European Parliament next June looks like a huge stretch. Still, one can begin to see the outlines of a possible transatlantic policy package in the longer term. Whether the two sides can get it done is another question. Success could hinge to a large extent on second terms for both US President Joe Biden and von der Leyen.
16. China accuses U.S. of kidnapping suspected traffickers
Jay Solomon, Semafor, August 1, 2023
China is accusing the U.S. of effectively kidnapping two of its citizens whom American authorities suspected of drug trafficking, the latest development in the escalating row between the countries over the narcotics trade that’s playing out globally.
In late June, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it had indicted two Chinese nationals for dealing the precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl after conducting an undercover sting operation. The pair was apprehended in Fiji, American officials said, and then extradited to Hawaii.
Chinese officials tell Semafor they have now sent a formal diplomatic complaint to the U.S., charging that the Biden administration conducted an illegal rendition by spiriting the suspects away from Fiji in an American plane before they could get access to Chinese consular officials or lawyers.
The two suspects are currently being held in New York where they’re awaiting federal trial for narcotics trafficking. Beijing has asked that they be sent back to China.
Beijing reacted angrily to the news of the arrests in June. But neither Chinese nor U.S. officials have previously suggested that a U.S. plane was used in a rendition.
COMMENT – As a Commonwealth country, Fiji has had an extradition treaty with the United States since 1935… perhaps PRC drug traffickers should consult Wikipedia.
Environmental Harms
17. Chinese Investment in Coal-Based Steel Mills Still Running Hot
Liz Ng, Bloomberg, August 1, 2023
Xinyi Shen and Lauri Myllyvirta, CREA, August 1, 2023
China currently produces more than 1 billion tons of crude steel annually, which is more than half of the world’s steel production. The dominance of the coal-based blast furnaces-basic oxygen furnace (BF–BOF) method in the Chinese steel sector, along with its large scale, presents significant challenges for decarbonisation efforts. Coal is burned to strip oxygen from the iron ore and this process generates substantial carbon emissions. The low carbon transition of the Chinese steel sector is essential for China’s carbon neutrality target by 2060, as well as for decarbonising the global steel sector. Deep decarbonisation would require substantial investments in zero-emission steelmaking technologies, as well as the early retirement of carbon-intensive facilities yet the sector’s persistent overcapacity and thin profitability is complicating the transition to cleaner steelmaking methods.
The Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA)’s latest briefing on the steel sector in China reveals that China’s crude steel output has declined since 2021 due to output control by the government and the decline in downstream demand. However, new investments in iron and steelmaking capacity have so far not adjusted to the new reality. The expansion of the Chinese steel industry demonstrates a close correlation with the nation’s economic development. Excessive investments have persistently inundated the industry, transforming the customary cyclical and short-term overcapacity situation into a protracted and persistent overcapacity issue, referred to as structural overcapacity.
The consequences of this overcapacity significantly impact the sector’s profitability because steel firms find it challenging to operate sustainably at levels below approximately 80% capacity utilisation.
COMMENT – Despite massive state investments and a near doubling of steel production over the last decade, the profitability of PRC steel production has gone negative.
19. China's Belt and Road energy projects set for "greenest" year, research shows
Andrew Hayley, Reuters, August 2, 2023
China's overseas energy engagement in Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries in the first half of 2023 was the "greenest" in terms of project type since its start, according to new research published on Tuesday.
According the report from the Green Finance and Development Centre (GFDC) at Fudan University in Shanghai, 56% of China's $8.61 billion in engagement, which they define as construction and investment, in the energy sector in BRI countries during the first half of the year went into renewable energy such as solar, wind, or hydropower projects.
COMMENT – Really no reason we should accept assertions by the GFDC at the PRC’s state-run Fudan University. Expect to see more greenwashing by “academic” institutions in the PRC as the Party shuts down access to data and restricts the ability of independent researchers to verify these claims.
20. Energy Is Taiwan’s Achilles’ Heel
Eugene Chausovsky, Foreign Policy, July 31, 2023
21. There’s something odd about where China is building solar power
Joseph Webster, Atlantic Council, July 27, 2023
While China’s deployment of solar panels is highly impressive, its actual generation from these assets is much less so. China is apparently deploying scarce solar assets irrationally, installing substantial numbers of solar panels in several renewables-poor provinces while largely ignoring sun-soaked regions. Even worse, more than half of China’s new solar installations are dedicated to “distributed” rooftop generation sites, which suffer from poor utilization factors compared with utility-scale solar from power plants.
While China’s solar deployment has been extremely wasteful from an economic or environmental perspective, the shape of Beijing’s solar build may be influenced in part by security considerations. While rooftop solar increases an electricity grid’s “attack surface” and potential exposure to cyberattacks, it also disperses generation and generally increases system resilience, especially if microgrids are employed. Beijing’s solar strategy has evidently prioritized deployment of rooftop solar for government buildings and in provinces that hold key naval bases. If tensions over Taiwan, for example, increase or even break into open conflict, mainland China’s distributed deployment of rooftop solar could reduce its overall vulnerability to cyberattacks or other disruptions, granting Beijing’s leadership greater flexibility.
…
It’s far too soon to conclude why the PRC is seemingly wasting solar panels en masse. The Chinese coal industry is extremely powerful and may be attempting to restrict renewables, while inter- or intra-provincial political economy may be playing an important, if unclear, role. As China’s disastrous COVID-19 response demonstrates, its political leadership is capable of profound errors, and it also has a history of wasting wind generation capacity. Beijing may simply be blundering its way into a more resilient grid. Still, it’s worth questioning why China is deploying so much solar capacity in such an economically and environmentally wasteful way.
22. U.S. Coast Guard to search, board for Papua New Guinea in stepped up Pacific role
Kirsty Needham, Reuters, July 31, 2023
Foreign Interference and Coercion
23. Biggest hurdles to China entry into trans-Pacific trade pact are political
Lucy Craymer and Joe Cash, Reuters, July 31, 2023
24. Solomon Islands newspaper pledged to promote ‘truth about China’s generosity’ in return for funding
Charley Piringi, The Guardian, August 2, 2023
25. How China’s ‘old friend’ diplomacy may be hurting its ties with the US
Dewey Sim, South China Morning Post, July 30, 2023
26. TikTok Has Pushed Chinese Propaganda Ads to Millions Across Europe
Iain Martin and Emily Baker-White, Forbes, July 27, 2023
27. China’s Approach to Foreign Policy Gets Largely Negative Reviews in 24-Country Survey
Laura Silver, Christine Huang, and Laura Clancy, Pew Research Center, July 27, 2023
28. Comparing PRC Engagement in Central and Eastern Europe with Latin America
Evan Ellis, CEEEP, July 27, 2023
29. Survey of Chinese Espionage in the United States Since 2000
Shawn Rostker, Evan Burke, et al, CSIS, March 2023
30. Biden, testing Xi, will bar Hong Kong’s leader from economic summit
Ellen Nakashima and Shibani Mahtani, Washington Post, July 27, 2023
31. VIDEO – How Russia Helped Turn China Into the World’s Biggest Car Exporter
Wall Street Journal, August 2, 2023
32. Caught Between China and Russia, Mongolia Seeks Closer U.S. Ties
Brian Spegele, Wall Street Journal, August 1, 2023
33. House committee quizzes BlackRock and MSCI on China investments
Demetri Sevastopulo, Chris Flood, and Harriet Agnew, Financial Times, August 1, 2023
Human Rights and Religious Persecution
34. China using families as 'hostages' to quash Uyghur dissent abroad
Sam Judah, BBC, July 30, 2023
35. A Poet Captures the Terror of Life in an Authoritarian State
Tiffany May, New York Times, August 1, 2023
36. ‘If I left, I’d have to go without a word’: how I escaped China’s mass arrests
Tahir Hamut Izgil, The Guardian, August 1, 2023
37. Any possible US-China ‘thaw’ must not leave Uyghurs out in the cold
Rayhan Asat, Atlantic Council, July 28, 2023
38. Solar Supply Chain Grows More Opaque Amid Human Rights Concerns
Ana Swanson and Ivan Penn, New York Times, August 1, 2023
Industrial Policies and Economic Espionage
39. U.S. dependence on China for lifesaving drugs grows
Rintaro Tobita, Nikkei Asia, August 2, 2023
40. Americans are ‘unwittingly funding’ blacklisted Chinese companies, Congressional panel says
Nicole Goodkind, CNN, August 2, 2023
A Congressional select committee is investigating BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, and MSCI, one of the biggest providers of index funds, to determine whether they are investing Americans’ savings in Chinese companies blacklisted by the US government for security and human rights issues.
The Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party of the US House of Representatives sent letters to BlackRock (BLK) CEO Larry Fink and MSCI CEO Henry Fernandez on Monday notifying both parties that it is investigating their investments in certain Chinese companies, according to documents reviewed by CNN.
“Our review has shown that, as a direct result of decisions made by MSCI, these Americans are now unwittingly funding PRC companies that develop and build weapons for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)—the PRC’s military—and advance the CCP’s stated mission of technological supremacy,” wrote the Select Committee’s Chairman, Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, and its ranking member, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat from Illinois. The committee sent an identical letter to BlackRock.
41. China tightens export restrictions on two chipmaking materials
Iori Kawate and Shoya Okinaga, Nikkei Asia, August 1, 2023
42. Hong Kong cuts China-risk section in listing rules, but says scrutiny unchanged
Selena Li and Kane Wu, Reuters, August 2, 2023
43. China asks some banks to reduce or delay dollar buying to ease pressure on yuan, sources say
Reuters, August 1, 2023
44. Venture capital to China evaporates under geopolitical hostilities
Xinmei Shen, South China Morning Post, July 28, 2023
45. Chinese buyers return to US housing market in search of a place to live
Salina Li, South China Morning Post, August 2, 2023
46. Bolivia is the latest South American nation to use China's yuan for trade in challenge to the dollar
Carlos Valdez and Daniel Politi, Associated Press, July 28, 2023
47. Chinese companies are canceling plans for Swiss listings
Kenji Kawase and Echo Wong, Nikkei Asia, July 28, 2023
48. VIDEO – US at risk of 'funding our own destruction,' says GOP lawmaker
Fox Business, August 2, 2023
49. Meloni, Biden Eye Deeper Ties as Italy Weighs Pivot from China
Chiara Albanese and Justin Sink, Bloomberg, July 27, 2023
50. The End of China’s Economic Miracle
Adam S. Posen, Foreign Affairs, August 2, 2023
51. The US and China are gearing up for war — and America isn't ready
Jake Epstein and Jacob Zinkula, Business Insider, July 27, 2023
52. Gallagher, Hawley, Colleagues Introduce Bill to Prevent Tax-Exempt Entities from Financing CCP Techno-Totalitarian State
The Select Committee on the CCP, August 1, 2023
53. Prospecting with Partners: The Case for Bilateral Cooperation on Critical Minerals
Jane Nakano, CSIS, July 31, 2023
54. European car industry can withstand cheap Chinese EVs, Bruno Le Maire says
Joe Leahy, Financial Times, July 30, 2023
55. While Everyone Else Fights Inflation, China Deflation Fears Deepen
Jason Douglas and Stella Yifan Xie, Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2023
56. France’s Eramet blames lack of EU funds for deeper partnership with Chinese
Harry Dempsey and Alice Hancock, Financial Times, July 30, 2023
57. China’s Economic Recovery Weakens
Stella Yifan Xie, Wall Street Journal, July 31, 2023
58. Small Investors Are a Big Problem in China
Weilun Soon, Wall Street Journal, July 31, 2023
Cyber & Information Technology
59. Intel deepens China presence with Shenzhen chip innovation centre
Ben Jiang, South China Morning Post, July 31, 2023
60. Generative AI services pulled from Apple App Store in China ahead of new regulations
Rita Liao, Techcrunch, August 1, 2023
61. US, Europe Growing Alarmed by China’s Rush into Legacy Chips
Jenny Leonard, Ian King, and Alberto Nardelli, Bloomberg, July 31, 2023
62. Biden to Sign Order Curbing US Tech Investments in China by Mid-August
Jenny Leonard, Bloomberg, July 28, 2023
63. China curbs exports of drone equipment amid U.S. tech tension
Reuters, July 31, 2023
64. TikTok ban on Australian government devices should also cover WeChat, parliamentary committee recommends
Josh Taylor, The Guardian, August 1, 2023
65. Quantum Tech Will Transform National Security. It’s Testing U.S. Alliances Now.
Damien Cave, New York Times, July 28, 2023
66. Elon Musk’s Unmatched Power in the Stars
Adam Satariano, Scott Reinhard, Cade Metz, Sheera Frenkel, and Malika Khurana, New York Times, July 28, 2023
67. DeSantis Says He Will Weigh U.S. Ban of TikTok if Elected President
Alex Leary, Wall Street Journal, July 31, 2023
68. Tech cold war: South Korea pivots from China to US
Christian Davies, Financial Times, August 1, 2023
69. Crypto Is Illegal in China. Binance Does $90 Billion of Business There Anyway.
Patricia Kowsmann and Caitlin Ostroff, Wall Street Journal, August 2, 2023
Military and Security Threats
70. Japan raises alarm over China's military, Russia ties and Taiwan tensions in new defense paper
Mari Yamaguchi, Associated Press, July 28, 2023
71. Inflection Point: How to Reverse the Erosion of U.S. and Allied Military Power and Influence
David A. Ochmanek, Anna Dowd, Stephen J. Flanagan, Andrew R. Hoehn, Jeffrey W. Hornung, Michael J. Lostumbo, and Michael J. Mazarr, RAND, July 2023
72. CDC detects coronavirus, HIV, hepatitis, and herpes at unlicensed California lab
Doha Madani, NBC, July 28, 2023
73. Beijing Is Going Places—and Building Naval Bases
Alexander Wooley and Sheng Zhang, Foreign Policy, July 27, 2023
74. The Dangerous and Frightening Disappearance of the Nuclear Expert
Bryan Bender, Politico, July 28, 2023
75. Xi’s Security Obsession
Sheena Chestnut Greitens, Foreign Affairs, July 28, 2023
76. New Taiwan weapons package to be announced soon, US officials say
Mike Stone and Idrees Ali, Reuters, July 27, 2023
77. Taiwan boosts counter-espionage effort after suspected China infiltration
Reuters, August 2, 2023
78. Chinese companies flock in record numbers to Turkish defense fair
Sinan Tavsan, Nikkei Asia, August 1, 2023
79. China’s Top Option for Next Naval Base Is Sri Lanka, Report Says
Philip Heijmans, Bloomberg, July 28, 2023
80. Chinese anti-corruption probe targets top PLA Rocket Force generals: sources
SCMP Reporters, South China Morning Post, July 28, 2023
81. China says US military aid to Taiwan will not deter its will unify the island
Huizhong Wu, Associated Press, July 30, 2023
82. China's military speeds preparations to blockade Taiwan
Yu Nakamura and Hideaki Ryugen, Nikkei Asia, August 1, 2023
83. What war mobilisation might look like in China
The Economist, July 27, 2023
84. Data on air bases suggest a Chinese invasion of Taiwan may not be imminent
The Economist, July 27, 2023
85. Taiwan Amps Up Chinese-Invasion Drills to Deliver a Message: War Could Happen
Joyu Wang, Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2023
86. Kim Jong Un Flaunts North Korea’s Newest Weapons with Russia and China by His Side
Dasl Yoon and Timothy W. Martin, Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2023
87. Japan ‘gravely concerned’ by China and Russia’s military co-operation
Kana Inagaki, Financial Times, July 28, 2023
88. U.S. Hunts Chinese Malware That Could Disrupt American Military Operations
David E. Sanger and Julian E. Barnes, New York Times, July 29, 2023
89. US seeks to deepen Tokyo-Seoul security links to boost Pacific deterrence
Demetri Sevastopulo, Kana Inagaki, and Christian Davies, Financial Times, August 1, 2023
90. Joe Biden to ask Congress to fund Taiwan arms via Ukraine budget
Demetri Sevastopulo and Felicia Schwartz, Financial Times, August 2, 2023
91. Xi's Surprise Shake-Up Exposes Problems at Top of China's Nuclear Force
Chris Buckley, New York Times, August 2, 2023
One Belt, One Road Strategy
92. Europe Avoids China’s Belt and Road Forum, Keeping a Distance from Xi and Putin
Chun Han Wong, Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2023
93. China’s overseas investment in metals and mining set to hit record
Edward White, Financial Times, August 1, 2023
94. Italy minister: joining China's Belt and Road was 'atrocious' decision
Alvise Armellini, Reuters, July 30, 2023
Opinion Pieces
95. Why Nissan’s woes in China are not just about electric vehicles
Kana Inagaki, Financial Times, August 1, 2023
96. China's Xi Jinping Faces HR Problems After Foreign Minister Purge
Minxin Pei, Bloomberg, July 27, 2023
97. It takes two to tango. But does China want to dance?
Fareed Zakaria, Washington Post, July 27, 2023
98. The U.S. Submarine Fleet Is Underwater
The Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2023
99. What the Qin Gang Episode Tells Us
Victor Shih, The Wire China, July 30, 2023