Matt Turpin's China Articles - January 15, 2023
Friends,
By the time you get this, I should be landing in Switzerland for a week of meetings.
I’m keen to hear from friends and colleagues in Europe their impressions of the relationship with the People’s Republic and I look forward to sharing those thoughts with you next week
As always, thanks for reading!
Matt
MUST READ
1. AUDIO – The New Wave: Could China’s latest coronavirus wave have been prevented?
Alice Su and David Rennie, The Economist’s Drum Tower, January 10, 2023
Since the zero-covid policy was scrapped, the virus has spread across China at a blistering pace. The medical system and crematoria are overwhelmed, but official data on infections and deaths is hazy. With so little transparency, is it possible to discover the true scale of the crisis? And, could this latest wave have been prevented?
COMMENT – Another powerful episode by Alice Su and David Rennie at the Economist’s new podcast on the PRC.
2. Germany's ties with China could change fundamentally - SPD leader
Paul Carrel, Reuters, January 11, 2023
Germany would be forced to cut ties with China in the way it has with Russia should China attack Taiwan, the leader of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD) told the weekly Die Zeit in comments published on Wednesday.
Germany is working on a new China strategy that takes a more sober view of relations and aims to reduce dependence on Asia's economic superpower.
"We must realise that tomorrow, the day after tomorrow or in 10 years' time, the time may come when China crosses borders," Lars Klingbeil told Die Zeit.
"If China attacks Taiwan, our relationship with China will also fundamentally change, as is the case now with Russia."
Scholz has said relations with Russia cannot return to the times before Russia's attack on Ukraine.
Although Germany has helped to arm Ukraine to resist the invasion, a senior German lawmaker said on Wednesday that Germany would not provide Taiwan with weapons and had not been asked to do so.
3. Taiwan calls on Germany to help maintain 'regional order'
Ben Blanchard, Reuters, January 11, 2023
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen called on Germany on Tuesday to help maintain "regional order" during a meeting with senior German lawmakers who are visiting the island on a trip that Beijing has condemned.
Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, has been heartened by support from Western democratic allies in the face of stepped-up Chinese military threats, including war games staged by China near the island in August.
…
Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, the head of Germany's parliamentary defence committee and a member of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's junior coalition partner Free Democrats (FDP), told Tsai that Germany and Taiwan are friends.
COMMENT – Chair of the German Bundestag’s Defense Committee visits Taipei and meets with President Tsai.
4. Germany's new China strategy 'guided by ideology', ambassador says
Christoph Steitz, Reuters, January 9, 2023
Plans for a tougher China strategy by Germany are "guided by ideology" and reflect a Cold War mentality that could put cooperation between the world's second- and fourth-largest economies at risk, China's ambassador to Berlin was quoted saying.
"What I read about it in the media and know from many conversations is very disconcerting to me," Wu Ken told Handelsblatt. "The paper gives the impression that it is guided primarily by ideology. It is not based on the common interests of Germany and China."
COMMENT – After years of working with CCP counterparts, it continues to amaze me how blind Party members are to the motivations, policymaking processes, and values of the rest of the world.
They are blind to how Beijing’s own actions drive responses by other countries that end up harming the PRC’s own interests. (Exhibit A – “Chinese incursions into India are increasing, strategically planned”, November 10, 2022)
There is zero enthusiasm in Berlin (along with nearly every other country) for the kind of competitive policies they are reluctantly adopting towards the PRC. It is the malign behavior of the Party that forces policymakers, politicians, and business leaders to change their approach towards the PRC. It is the concrete examples of hostility, illiberalism, and gross human rights abuses by Beijing that force those countries to abandon cooperation and engagement… approaches that were overwhelmingly preferred in almost every capital and by every political party just a decade ago.
Who knows whether individuals like Ambassador Wu Ken understand this dynamic or not. I used to think that my counterparts understood deep-down how counterproductive their rhetoric and actions were and that if only we could “communicate” more clearly, perhaps behind closed doors, we could come to a mutually beneficial agreement.
But I’ve come to believe that the Party lives in an alternative reality: one of victimization and existential struggle… a reality that they are imposing upon the rest of us. It is as if the Party NEEDS to create foreign enemies because the existence of ‘hostile foreign forces’ justifies the Party’s monopoly hold on power. Under this worldview, individual Chinese citizens cannot be allowed to think for themselves or call for political changes, so long as the Chinese nation is besieged on all sides.
It is as if the Party has concluded that a benign international environment, which nearly everyone naturally prefers, is “harmful” to the Party’s selfish interests and that it must adopt a policy of perpetual struggle to make its perverted political system work.
To be clear, this is a pathology of Leninist parties and not a characteristic of the Chinese people. This is a foreign political ideology imposed, by force, on the Chinese people. Taiwan provides all the evidence we need to know that the Chinese people are more that capable of prosperity and dignity under a multi-party democracy with the rule of law to limit the power of government over the individual.
5. Should Democracies Draw Redlines around Research Collaboration with China? A Case Study of Germany
Jeffrey Stoff, Center for Research Security and Integrity, January 11, 2023
The study catalogs scientific and engineering research collaboration between Germany (a substantial subset also includes European, US, and Australian collaborators) and China as a case study on assessing risks and identifying deficiencies within current research security regimes.
COMMENT – I had the pleasure of speaking on a panel that Jeff Stoff organized for the release of his report and the launch of his new non-profit, the Center for Research Security and Integrity. I was joined by some incredible colleagues: Anna Puglisi at Georgetown’s CSET, Karen Sutter at the Congressional Research Service, and my Hoover teammate, Glenn Tiffert.
U.S. Department of Justice, January 10, 2023
A Berklee College of Music student, who is a citizen of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Boston in connection with allegedly stalking and threatening an individual who posted fliers in support of democracy in China.
Xiaolei Wu, 25, was indicted on one count of cyberstalking and one count of interstate transmissions of threatening communication. Wu was previously arrested and charged by criminal complaint with one count of stalking on Dec. 13, 2022. Wu has lived in Boston while attending the Berklee College of Music.
According to the charging documents, on Oct. 22, 2022, an individual posted a flier on or near the Berklee College of Music campus in Boston which said, “Stand with Chinese People,” as well as, “We Want Freedom,” and “We Want Democracy.” It is alleged that, beginning on or about Oct. 22, 2022, and continuing until Oct. 24, 2022, Wu made a series of communications via WeChat, email, and Instagram directed towards the victim who posted the flier. Among other things, Wu allegedly said, “Post more, I will chop your bastard hands off.” He also allegedly told the victim that he had informed the public security agency in China about the victim’s actions and that the public security agency in China would “greet” the victim’s family. It is further alleged that Wu solicited others to find out where the victim was living and publicly posted the victim’s email address in the hopes that others would abuse the victim online.
7. VIDEO – What Has Happened to Me: The Testimony of an Uzbek Woman in Uyghur Concentration Camp
Tomomi Shimizu, YouTube, December 28, 2022
This is the testimony of a woman who was a teacher in a concentration camp controlled by the Chinese Communist Party in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
8. She Witnessed Mao’s Worst Excesses. Now She Has a Warning for the World.
Alexandra Stevenson, New York Times, January 13, 2023
At 93, the memoirist Yuan-tsung Chen hopes that her recollections of China’s tumultuous past will help the country confront its historical wrongs — and avoid repeating them.
Yuan-tsung Chen, an author, leaned forward in an oversize velvet chair to tell the story of the man so hungry that he ate himself.
Once, that tale had seemed unbelievable to her. “I thought that was an exaggeration,” she said. But living in a village during the Great Leap Forward, Mao Zedong’s calamitous attempt to catapult China into communist plenty in the late 1950s, changed her view on what extreme hunger could drive people to actually do.
“It wasn’t anyone’s exaggeration, it was as true as real life, but nobody would say it,” Ms. Chen said, recalling the desperation and starvation caused by Mao’s experiment. Historians estimate that up to 45 million people died over the course of five years.
Now, sitting at a restaurant in one of Hong Kong’s most opulent hotels, Ms. Chen, 93, says she has a warning for the world.
Having lived through one of the most tumultuous periods in China’s recent history, Ms. Chen disputes the Communist Party’s sanitized version of its past and worries it has allowed it to continue making mistakes with global consequences.
Her voice drops, barely audible among the din of cutlery and diners in the restaurant: “When you do things in the spirit of Mao, that scares me,” she says, referring to China’s top leader, Xi Jinping.
Her books, she said, are meant to add “blood and flesh” to the official party account and help readers empathize with the Chinese people who have suffered under an authoritarian system. But her efforts have raised questions about whose voice matters when it comes to narrating Chinese history.
AUTHORITARIANISM
9. The Chinese Communist Party plans to avoid a zero-covid reckoning
The Economist, January 5, 2023
Like Chairman Mao, Xi Jinping seems to believe that China’s rise trumps individual suffering.
Across china, families are enduring avoidable misery and heartbreak, as loved ones succumb to a deadly—and predictable—wave of covid-19 infections for which their rulers failed to prepare. Some overseas analysts talk of a turning-point. They wonder if today’s policy disarray, which follows on the heels of anti-lockdown protests in late 2022, signals a crisis of legitimacy for President Xi Jinping and the Communist Party.
This is a grim moment for China’s people. For all the claims that infections have peaked in big cities like Beijing, there will, tragically, be more deaths when the virus finds older folk now sheltering at home, or living in rural villages. A shameful number of those deaths will be preventable. Yet it is possible that Mr Xi will pay no visible price for pandemic horrors on his watch.
COMMENT – If experience is a guide, then I suspect Xi will effectively avoid responsibility… Mao’s portrait still stares smugly over Tiananmen even after killing 30-40 million of his own citizens with disastrously irresponsible “modernization” policies. The Party’s aristocracy are selfish enough to know that any real effort to hold Xi responsible would threaten the entire Party’s monopoly hold on power. For the Party, the collapse of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union began with Khrushchev’s ‘Secret Speech’ denouncing Stalin after his death. As Party leaders often say: historical nihilism is a mortal danger.
The Party will do, what the Party does best… close ranks and protect their privileged positions in society and force the Chinese people to bare the enormous costs of their failures.
10. China’s Epidemic of Mistrust
Lynette H. Ong, Foreign Affairs, January 11, 2023
How Xi’s COVID-19 U-Turn Will Make the Country Harder to Govern.
11. Angry workers clash with police in Chongqing after test-kit maker fires thousands
Xiaoshan Huang, Radio Free Asia, January 9, 2023
Angry workers at a now-defunct COVID-19 test kit factory in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing clashed with police over the weekend, upset about unpaid wages after the company announced mass layoffs.
Social media footage of the Saturday night protests showed people throwing traffic cones, boxes and stools at police with riot shields, while other clips uploaded to social media platforms like Douyin and Twitter showed a crowd of people shouting "Give us back our money!"
Workers smashed machinery and equipment in the factory and fought off fully equipped riot police with rocks and random debris, the videos showed.
12. Fed up with a nationwide fireworks ban, crowds in Henan overturn police car
Hwang Chun-mei, Radio Free Asia, January 3, 2023
Angered by a nationwide ban on fireworks in cities, crowds in the central Chinese province of Henan attacked and overturned a police vehicle late Monday, while social media posts showed residents in other cities setting off fireworks in defiance of the orders.
Revelers on Hongdaoyuan Square in Henan's Luyi County "deliberately vandalized a police car ... causing chaos at the scene," police said in a statement on the standoff, which it said took place at around 11.00 p.m. local time on Jan. 2. Six people were arrested.
Several video clips of the incident were uploaded to social media that showed people jumping onto a police car and another man in a Balenciaga jacket displaying the police car license plate he had ripped from the vehicle to the surrounding crowd.
The incident was sparked by police trying to enforce a fireworks ban, which led some in the crowd to prevent the police car from leaving and others to throw drinks and start smashing it, before the most visible protesters jumped onto the car and removed its license plates.
13. TWEET – A #Chinese police car was overturned by a crowd protesting the New Year's Eve fireworks ban in China.
Daily Turkic, Twitter, January 3, 2023
14. China's recent wave of protests could see a resurgence in the coming year: analysts
Han Qing and Hwang Chun-mei, January 4, 2023
The recent wave of ‘white paper’ movement and the New Year’s protests over a nationwide ban on fireworks could be the beginning of a broader political resistance to authoritarian rule under Chinese President Xi Jinping, exiled political activists said in recent interviews.
Veteran dissidents who have spent decades campaigning for, thinking and writing about democracy in China said the momentum of the recent protests is likely far from spent.
"Some people are saying that the ‘white paper’ movement is over, but we are still seeing expressions of popular feeling, including the recent fireworks movement," former 1979 Democracy Wall movement leader Wei Jingsheng said.
"They may be fairly minor, but they still indicate that there is opposition to Xi Jinping, and to the Communist Party," he said.
"People are less and less willing to tolerate the Communist Party's dictatorial rule," said Wei, who now lives in the United States. "Given the prevalence of this mood, it's possible that more unexpected developments could happen."
Wei said nobody had foreseen the recent wave of "white paper" protests sparked by a fatal lockdown fire in Xinjiang's regional capital Urumqi which appeared in cities across China in late November.
"Nobody foresaw the fireworks movement either," he said. "What is foreseeable is that there is going to be a huge wave of COVID-19 infections this Lunar New Year, which will have a direct effect on the stability of this regime."
15. The US Keeps Offering China Its Covid Vaccines. China Keeps Saying No
Jenny Leonard, Bloomberg, January 6, 2023
China has rebuffed repeated US offers to share advanced vaccines as Beijing battles a fast-spreading wave of Covid-19, a rejection that’s led to growing frustration among American officials concerned about a resurgence of the pandemic.
Worried about the rise of new variants and impact on China’s economy, the US has repeatedly offered mRNA vaccines and other assistance to President Xi Jinping’s government through private channels, according to US officials who asked not to be identified discussing the deliberations.
COMMENT – To me this is indicative of the state of “cooperation” and “engagement” between the United States and the PRC. You can’t impose “cooperation,” despite all the voices who call on Washington to manage the relationship responsibly, if the other side has no interest in reciprocating.
16. China ‘under-representing’ true impact of Covid outbreak, WHO says
Simone McCarthy, CNN, January 6, 2023
The World Health Organization has accused China of “under-representing” the severity of its Covid outbreak and criticized its “narrow” definition of what constitutes a Covid death, as top global health officials urge Beijing to share more data about the explosive spread.
“We continue to ask China for more rapid, regular, reliable data on hospitalizations and deaths, as well as more comprehensive, real-time viral sequencing,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a media briefing in Geneva Wednesday.
“WHO is concerned about the risk to life in China and has reiterated the importance of vaccination, including booster doses, to protect against hospitalization, severe disease, and death,” he said.
Speaking in more detail, WHO executive director for health emergencies Mike Ryan said the numbers released by China “under-represent the true impact of the disease” in terms of hospital and ICU admissions, as well as deaths.
17. China slams WHO for doubting 'transparent' COVID data
Tsukasa Hadano, Nikkei Asia, January 13, 2023
China's Foreign Ministry responded sharply on Thursday to the World Health Organization's skepticism about the country's disclosure of COVID-19 data, calling on the WHO to examine all the facts "rationally" before making critiques.
"We hope that the WHO will look at China's COVID response scientifically and rationally and that its related statements will reflect objectivity and impartiality," ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters.
COMMENT – The truth hurts…
18. China’s Covid patients face medical debt crisis as insurers refuse coverage
Sun Yu, Wang Xueqiao, and Nian Liu, Financial Times, January 9, 2023
Narrow definition of cases leaves claimants on the hook after state-backed policies drop free care.
Chinese patients suffering from Covid-19 are struggling under mounting medical bills after state-backed health insurance schemes reduced or dropped coverage in response to an unprecedented wave of infections sweeping across the country.
At least 14 Chinese cities and provinces have stopped providing free treatment for coronavirus after Beijing abruptly rolled back its zero-Covid strategy last month, according to local government announcements. For three years, Chinese patients had received subsidised care for the virus.
COMMENT – This is bound to cause significant unrest. In the Party’s efforts to obscure the true scope and scale of their disastrous policies, they are imposing even more suffering on the Chinese people to “protect” Xi from embarrassment.
19. As China Reopens, Online Finger-Pointing Shows a Widening Gulf
Chang Che, Claire Fu, and Amy Chang Chien, New York Times, January 11, 2023
The Communist Party’s efforts to limit discord over its sudden “zero Covid” pivot are being challenged with increasing rancor, including from its own supporters.
20. South Korea calls China's visa suspension 'deeply regrettable'
Soo-Hyang Choi and Hyonhee Shin, Reuters, January 11, 2023
China's recent decision to suspend the issue of short-term visas in South Korea was "deeply regrettable", the South's Foreign Minister Park Jin said on Wednesday.
Tuesday's suspension by the Chinese embassy in South Korea was China's first retaliatory move against countries imposing COVID-19 curbs on its travellers.
"It's deeply regrettable China took such a countermeasure by entirely suspending issuance of short-term visas," Park told a news briefing, adding that South Korea still issues visas to Chinese visitors for urgent business or humanitarian purposes.
21. South Korea’s travel spat with China
The Economist, January 12, 2023
China uses a row over visas to probe for South Korean weaknesses.
It has been tough these past few years for the shopkeepers around Gyeongbokgung Palace, once home to Korea’s Joseon dynasty and now the most prominent tourist attraction in Seoul. In 2019 6m Chinese tourists visited South Korea, filling the cash registers of local restaurants in the South Korean capital and the shops that rent out hanbok (traditional Korean garb in which tourists pose in the palace grounds as if in their favourite historical drama). With the pandemic, Chinese visits fell to nearly nothing. So when the government in Beijing suddenly abandoned its draconian lockdowns and tight restrictions on foreign travel, Chinese snapped up tickets to South Korea. Expectations in Seoul soared. Now a spat between the two countries has left Chinese tourists grounded—along with shopkeepers’ hopes.
Worried about the Chinese government’s reluctance to publish accurate covid-19 data, and fearing a fresh outbreak seeded by Chinese visitors, South Korea ruled late last year that travellers from China must test negative both before and after arrival. (Like much of East Asia during the pandemic, South Korea followed strict visa controls and quarantine requirements.) Then on January 2nd it stopped issuing short-term visas to Chinese nationals. This week China responded in kind, refusing to issue even transit visas to South Koreans merely passing through the country.
COMMENT – Probably the best explanation I’ve seen for why Beijing singled out South Korea (and Japan) for this retaliation.
22. Hong Kong refuses to reveal details of secretive ‘deradicalization’ program for former protesters
James Griffiths, Globe and mail, January 10, 2023
Since November, 2021, hundreds of mostly young people who took part in anti-government protests in Hong Kong have participated in a “deradicalization” program designed to “enhance their sense of national identity” and guide them “back on the right track.”
That’s what the city’s secretary for security, Chris Tang, told lawmakers last month in hailing the program as a great success. In total, 474 inmates convicted of offences related to “black-clad violence” – the government’s term for the unrest that rocked the city in 2019 – have taken part in Project Path since it was launched 14 months ago.
While some former prisoners have denounced it as “brainwashing,” participants who spoke with The Globe and Mail said that gives the program too much credit, describing the materials as simplistic and intensely pro-China. A man surnamed Chan, who was convicted in late 2021 and among the first to enroll in Project Path, said he feigned interest and went along with it in the hopes of reducing his sentence.
“They were always telling me how great China was and how I should love China,” he said. “If we didn’t agree with it, we would have to remain in the program. Out of 10 people, maybe one person was convinced.”
COMMENT – I suspect the Chinese Communist Party employ many of the same tactics and procedures it has been perfecting against Tibetans and Uyghurs over the past few decades.
23. China is still punishing those who protested against zero-covid
The Economist, January 12, 2023
The government has ditched the policy, but not its repression of dissent.
COMMENT – There is a joke going around.
Three men who don’t know each other sit in a prison cell. Each explains why he was arrested:
“I opposed Covid testing.”
“I supported Covid testing.”
“I conducted Covid testing.”
24. Asia, Europe Look to Collective Action to Restrain China
Alastair Gale and Chieko Tsuneoka, Wall Street Journal, January 12, 2023
Democracies in Asia that rely on the backstop of U.S. military power for their prosperity are confronting a new reality: American protection is no longer enough now that China rivals the U.S. in areas such as advanced missiles and naval hardware.
To tackle the problem, Beijing’s neighbors, with prodding from the U.S. and help from Europe, are building a network of regional security ties with a goal similar to that of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization: deterring a large nation whose growing ambitions have raised the prospect of conflict.
It is a far cry from the real NATO, which has a treaty binding all 30 members to defend each other if one is attacked. But by stepping up military training, information sharing and defense procurement with each other, countries such as Japan, Australia, South Korea and the Philippines aim to project greater military readiness.
COMMENT – Collective security, a concept enshrined in the United Nations Charter, is the logical response to increasingly hostile and expansionist efforts by Beijing and Moscow. The world is NOT flat and our global institutions are unable to provide guarantees.
25. ‘The Hong Kong Diaries’ Review: The Last Governor
L. Gordon Crovitz, Wall Street Journal, January 6, 2023
The final British governor of Hong Kong saw portents of troubled times ahead but was told to keep his concerns to himself.
ENVIRONMENTAL HARMS
26. How China’s Appetite for Rosewood Fuels Illegal Logging in Ghana
Nosmot Gbadamosi, Foreign Policy, December 17, 2022
Soaring demand for luxury furniture in Asia is decimating Ghana’s forests while creating a lucrative but environmentally destructive industry.
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE AND COERCION
27. With F.B.I. Search, U.S. Escalates Global Fight Over Chinese Police Outposts
Megha Rajagopalan and William K. Rashbaum, New York Times, January 12, 2023
Beijing says the outposts aren’t doing police work, but Chinese state media reports say they “collect intelligence” and solve crimes far outside their jurisdiction.
The nondescript, six-story office building on a busy street in New York’s Chinatown lists several mundane businesses on its lobby directory, including an engineering company, an acupuncturist and an accounting firm.
A more remarkable enterprise, on the third floor, is unlisted: a Chinese outpost suspected of conducting police operations without jurisdiction or diplomatic approval — one of more than 100 such outfits around the world that are unnerving diplomats and intelligence agents.
F.B.I. counterintelligence agents searched the building last fall as part of a criminal investigation being conducted with the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn, according to people with knowledge of the inquiry. The search represents an escalation in a global dispute over China’s efforts to police its diaspora far beyond its borders. Irish, Canadian and Dutch officials have called for China to shut down police operations in their countries. The F.B.I. raid is the first known example of the authorities seizing materials from one of the outposts.
Those who discussed the F.B.I. search did so on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter. The Chinese Embassy in Washington on Wednesday played down the role of the outposts, saying they are staffed by volunteers who help Chinese nationals perform routine tasks like renewing their driver’s licenses back home.
28. Philippines top court voids old South China Sea energy deal
Karen Lema, Reuters, January 10, 2023
The Supreme Court in the Philippines on Tuesday declared the country's 2005 energy exploration agreement with Chinese and Vietnamese firms was illegal, ruling the constitution does not allow foreign entities to exploit natural resources.
The decision, on an agreement that expired in 2008, could complicate efforts by China to revive oil and gas exploration talks with the Philippines in areas of the South China Sea that are not in dispute. The court gave no explanation for why the ruling came 14 years after a petition was filed.
…
China claims jurisdiction over almost the entire South China Sea and the risk of energy activities being disrupted have made it tricky for the Philippines to find foreign partners, despite an arbitration court clarifying what Manila's entitlements were.
29. Worry about Japan not China, says Beijing’s top envoy in Australia
Matthew Knott, Sydney Morning Herald, January 10, 2023
China’s ambassador to Australia has launched an extraordinary attack on Japan, warning Australians against becoming too trusting of their former World War II adversary and declaring Japan is a greater military threat than China.
Xiao Qian, China’s top envoy in Australia, said Japan’s failure to issue an official apology for its conduct during WWII, including the mistreatment of Australian prisoners of war, meant it could again go to war with Australia, even though the countries have since become close security partners.
Describing the Australia-China relationship as at “a critical stage of turnaround”, Xiao said he hoped a solution to the detention of Australians Cheng Lei and Yang Hengjun in China would soon emerge, adding that it was important for Australia to respect China’s legal processes.
COMMENT – Yet another example of how PRC ‘diplomats’ cannot read a room.
[side-eye emoji] [popcorn emoji]
30. Dalio's Bridgewater cements rank in 2022 as top foreign hedge fund in China
Summer Zhen and Samuel Shen, Reuters, January 10, 2023
HUMAN RIGHTS AND RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
31. Why Beijing Wants Jimmy Lai Locked Up
Timothy McLaughlin, The Atlantic, January 6, 2023
Tightening its grip on Hong Kong, China is determined to make an example of the prodemocracy media tycoon.
When Beijing imposed the national-security law on Hong Kong in 2020, its goal was not simply to stifle free expression and lock up dissenters. The idea was to subordinate every institution in the city, leaving the “one country, two systems” framework that granted autonomy to the Chinese territory an empty slogan. Henceforth Beijing would no longer tolerate criticism from Hong Kong, or protests on its streets.
With the prodemocracy movement of 2019–20 effectively crushed, the Hong Kong government and officials in Beijing have found additional uses for the law: to settle old scores and rewrite history. By prosecuting a relatively small number of high-profile cases under the national-security law, the authorities are portraying the movement not as a popular uprising but as a traitorous conspiracy of troublemakers in league with foreign powers. Any plot needs a ringleader, and the authorities believe they have one to fit their narrative: the media tycoon Jimmy Lai.
32. Manga artist documents Uyghur woman’s experiences in Xinjiang ‘re-education’ camp
Gulchehra Hoja and Erkin Tarim, Radio Free Asia, January 5, 2023
A famous writer and illustrator in Japan has produced a new manga booklet portraying the experiences of an ethnic Uzbek woman forced to teach Mandarin to mostly Uyghur detainees in 're-education' camps in northwest China's Xinjiang region.
Tomomi Shimizu's latest work builds on her success with her previous booklets on female detainees in Xinjiang, released in Japan to draw attention to the repression of the mostly Muslim Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples in northwest China.
33. Is the Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act working?
Ruth Ingram, The China Project, January 6, 2023
Half a year after Washington enacted a set of laws intended to prevent products of coerced labor from entering the U.S. market, supply chains in the solar power and apparel industries are snarled up, but it’s uncertain if the Uyghurs themselves have seen any benefit.
34. VIDEO – East Turkistan
Della Miles, YouTube, December 12, 2022
35. COVID deaths surge in Tibet after lockdowns end
Sangyal Kunchok, Sonam Lhamo, and Guru Choekyi, Radio Free Asia, January 4, 2023
36. #WithoutJustCause Political Prisoners Campaign
U.S. State Department, January 2023
INDUSTRIAL POLICIES AND ECONOMIC ESPIONAGE
37. Chinese exports suffer sharpest fall in 3 years as Covid pain spreads
Thomas Hale and Kai Waluszewski, Financial Times, January 13, 2023
China’s exports suffered the sharpest decline in almost three years in December, piling on further economic pressure as policymakers in Beijing grapple with sluggish economic growth and a nationwide outbreak of Covid-19.
38. China’s Export Decline Deepens, Threatening Growth
Stella Yifan Xie, Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2023
The export boom that carried China’s economy through much of the Covid-19 pandemic has lost momentum, adding urgency for Beijing to seek growth drivers elsewhere as the global economy struggles.
COMMENT – December’s decline was 9.9% year on year, topping the next worst month (November 2022) which saw a 8.7% decline. Were these numbers the straws that broke the back of dynamic zero-COVID?
39. Honda's JV with GAC ends production of Acura brand in China
Zhang Yan and Brenda Goh, Reuters, January 9, 2023
Chinese carmaker Guangzhou Automobile Group (GAC) said on Monday its joint venture with Honda Motor is no longer producing or selling products under the Japanese firm's premium Acura brand.
COMMENT – This is the second foreign car brand to exit the PRC in the last three months (Stellantis, maker of Jeep, ended its JV in October and exited the PRC).
40. Bosch Doubles Down on China With $1 Billion EV Parts Plant
William Wilkes, Bloomberg, January 12, 2023
COMMENT – Of course, German companies are doubling down.
41. China Solar Firm Plans US Plant in Win for Biden Energy Push
Dan Murtaugh and Luz Ding, Bloomberg, January 11, 2023
A leading Chinese solar panel maker has leased space for its first US factory in another win for the Biden administration’s efforts to build up the nation’s clean energy manufacturing base.
JA Solar Technology Co. will build a $60 million panel plant in Phoenix with plans to be operational by the fourth quarter of this year, the company said in a press release issued by the Arizona Commerce Authority.
COMMENT – Seems like an absolute certain way to violate the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.
42. Scoop: White House narrowing executive order on China investments
Hans Nichols, Axios, January 12, 2023
43. Argentina and China formalize currency swap deal
Jorge Otaola, Reuters, January 8, 2023
44. Tesla China Plant Expansion in Doubt Over Starlink Concerns
Bloomberg, January 12, 2023
COMMENT – A development that should surprise absolutely no one.
45. China wants to corner another segment of the global auto industry: car shipping
Mary Hui, Quartz, January 12, 2023
Chinese state media described the specialized car transport ships as "money-printing machines at sea".
46. U.S. House passes bill banning exports of reserve oil to China
Timothy Gardner, Reuters, January 12, 2023
CYBER AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
47. Hikvision Interrogation Platform for Communist Party Members Examined
Charles Rollet, IPVM, January 9, 2023
Hikvision offers an interrogation solution for the Communist Party of China to interrogate Party members over corruption. The solution is not listed on Hikvision websites but is mentioned in several PRC procurement documents and other government records.
IPVM previously reported about another Hikvision Interrogation Solution used for regular detainees which integrates with tiger chairs.
In this report, IPVM examines the solution, as well as Hikvision's deep Communist Party ties.
COMMENT – Hikvision integrates their interrogation solutions with tiger chairs.
48. Just how over is China's tech crackdown? It depends who you ask
Cissy Zhou, Nikkei Asia, January 13, 2023
Optimistic investors push up share prices, but analysts say Beijing's grip not easing.
COMMENT – Reference the next article, the Party is “easing” its crackdown because these firms are now Party controlled. What used to make these tech companies attractive investments have been destroyed.
49. China’s Government to Take Golden Shares in Alibaba, Tencent
Bloomberg, January 12, 2023
COMMENT – I think we need to adopt a new term for PRC commercial entities: Party-owned Enterprises (POEs). POEs represent a hybrid of the traditional State-owned Enterprise (SOE) by using the terminology and structural forms of a familiar multi-national corporation (which is controlled by independent shareholders) and replaces those “shareholders” with Party control and ownership. Individuals and funds that “invest” in a POE believe they have an ownership stake in the enterprise, like they would in a typical Multinational Corporation. In fact, they “ownership” stakes have no legal standing when compared with the interest of the firms real owners, the Chinese Communist Party.
It is grossly irresponsible for foreign Asset Managers and Mutual Funds to continue to hold these POEs within their portfolios… the fiduciary duty these managers own to their clients demands that they withdraw their funds due to the complete lack of corporate governance controls over these Party-owned entities.
50. Chinese researchers claim to find way to break encryption using quantum computers
Richard waters, Financial Times, January 4, 2023
51. China’s version of Starlink is government-backed — and has global ambitions
Meaghan Tobin, Rest of the World, January 11, 2023
52. Chinese social media app Kwai played a role in Brazil riot
Louise Matsakis, Semafor, January 11, 2023
Brazilians and foreign observers are trying to sort out what role social media played in a riot on Sunday, when supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro stormed Congress, the Supreme Court, and the presidential palace in the capital Brasilia.
One app that has not yet received much attention is Kwai, a video platform similar to TikTok run by one of ByteDance’s biggest Chinese competitors, Kuaishou. Last year, Kwai said it had 45 million monthly active users in Brazil, around 20% of the total population.
53. China State-Owned Airlines to Delist in New York, Joining Exodus
Bloomberg, January 13, 2023
COMMENT – Great development, completely irresponsible to ever let these two State-owned Enterprises list themselves on a U.S. capital market.
54. Why Are Governors Turning on TikTok?
Jennifer Calfas, Wall Street Journal, January 12, 2023
MILITARY AND SECURITY THREATS
55. How U.S. Scientists are Collaborating with China's Military: 'Wake-Up Call'
Didi Kristen Tatlow, Newsweek, January 12, 2023
Work on a robotic fish with potential military use was just one of hundreds of examples of collaboration between scientists in the U.S. and its allies and researchers linked to China's military, according to a new study seen by Newsweek.
The study, which focuses primarily on scientists in key U.S. NATO ally Germany, reveals a scale of collaboration between scientific institutions in the West and researchers connected with China's military that is far greater than has previously been reported.
56. Chinese military simulating attacks on Nansei Islands
Seima Oki, Japan News, December 22, 2022
A Chinese carrier strike group has been conducting drills that simulate attacks on Japan’s Nansei Islands since Dec. 16, Chinese government sources told The Yomiuri Shimbun.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is said to have instructed the military to start the drills on the day the Japanese government unveiled three major defense-related documents.
57. Taiwan condemns China for latest combat drills near island
Sarah Wu and Liz Lee, Reuters, January 9, 2023
Taiwan condemned China on Monday for holding its second military combat drills around the island in less than a month, with the defence ministry saying it had detected 57 Chinese aircraft.
Asia News Network, December 27, 2022
For over 72 hours, China Coast Guard vessels stayed in Japan’s territorial waters, the longest continuous intrusion since 2012, Japan’s 11th Regional Coast Guard Headquarters said Sunday.
The vessels were around the Senkaku Islands, which were nationalized in 2012 as part of Ishigaki, Okinawa Prefecture.
While Tokyo and Beijing are making moves to improve bilateral relations as this year marks the 50th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic ties, tensions remain high as China continues to intrude into Japanese territorial waters and sail in contiguous zones around the islands.
The regional coast guard headquarters said that two China Coast Guard vessels entered the Japanese territorial waters at about 9:34 a.m. on Thursday to seemingly follow a 9.7-ton Japanese ship operating near Taisho Island of the Senkakus.
59. China’s coast guard patrols site of Indonesian gas field
Radio Free Asia, January 5, 2023
The China Coast Guard’s leading ship has been patrolling the waters around Indonesia’s Natuna islands in the South China Sea just as Jakarta approves a plan to develop an offshore gas field there, ship tracking data shows.
CCG 5901, the world’s largest coast guard vessel, has been in the area since Dec. 30, according to the ship tracker Marine Traffic.
Earlier this week, the Indonesian government passed the first development plan for the Tuna Block, which is located within Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) but also inside the so-called “nine-dash line” that China uses to claim historical rights over most of the South China Sea.
Last month, Vietnam and Indonesia concluded talks on the boundaries of their EEZs, a move likely to irk China as the two countries’ claims also lie within the “nine-dash line.”
Chinese coast guard vessels have been patrolling the area to back “Beijing’s ridiculous claims in the South China Sea,” said Satya Pratama, a senior Indonesian government official and a former Bakamla (Indonesia’s Maritime Security Agency) captain.
But the presence of the CCG 5901, dubbed “the monster” for its size and tonnage, may signal a step up in China’s assertiveness.
COMMENT – For years, the PRC has been using its Coast Guard vessels to coerce and intimidate its neighbors in the South China Sea to capitulate to Beijing’s demands of sovereignty over Indonesian, Malaysian, Filipino, and Vietnamese Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs).
60. Indonesia Risks Confrontation with China Over Gas Project in South China Sea
Jon Emont, Wall Street Journal, January 11, 2023
Around a remote cluster of islands in the South China Sea, Indonesia is pushing back against Beijing’s expansive claims over the strategic waterway.
It announced last week that it had approved plans to develop a large natural-gas field near the Natuna Islands. The field sits within Indonesia’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone, which means that under international law, Jakarta has the right to exploit natural resources there. But China’s claims cover almost all of the South China Sea, extending to the area where the gas field lies, nearly 1,000 miles from the Chinese mainland.
COMMENT – Peculiar headline from the WSJ on this one… it is as if Indonesia is being “provocative” for operating in its own Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Unfortunately, we’ve been subtly conditioned for years to accept, almost subconsciously, the CCP’s illegitimate territorial expansionism.
That’s true on the way media outlets cover Taiwan, it is true for the coverage of Beijing’s 60-year effort to seize India’s state of Arunachal Pradesh, and its true for the broad coverage of the Party’s Nine Dash Line in the South China Sea.
61. VIDEO – The First Battle of the Next War: A US-China Conflict over Taiwan
Center for Strategic and International Studies, January 9, 2023
War with China was once unimaginable but is now a frequent topic of analysis and discussion. CSIS ran 24 iterations of a wargame to see how such a conflict might play out. The bottom line: although in most scenarios Taiwan endured as an autonomous and democratic entity, the costs were staggering for all involved.
COMMENT – Key take-away: “Deterrence is possible and affordable”… particularly when one considers the costs of the failure of deterrence.
62. VIDEO – Report Launch―The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan
Center for Strategic and International Studies, January 10, 2023
63. Japan, Britain to sign defense pact
Japan News, January 6, 2023
64. Space Launches Should Withstand Chinese Challenge, Pentagon Mandate Says
Doug Cameron and Micah Maidenberg, Wall Street Journal, January 10, 2023
The next generation of rockets built to launch U.S. spy satellites into orbit will have to be capable of fending off interference by China and Russia, according to people briefed on a coming Pentagon competition.
The Defense Department is preparing to issue new requirements for the contractors vying to build the rockets, intended to counter China’s growing capabilities in space. That marks a change from previous contract awards, which were driven primarily by reliability and cost concerns.
65. U.S. beefs up Marine unit in Japan amid fresh threats from China
Lara Seligman and Phelim Kine, Politico, January 11, 2023
ONE BELT, ONE ROAD STRATEGY
66. Pakistan’s Port City Gwadar in Chaos
Muhammad Bezinjo, The Diplomat, January 7, 2023
The “crown jewel” of CPEC is under an internet shutdown after a crackdown on protests.
Pakistan’s port city of Gwadar, the hub of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), is in a siege-like situation amid unrest caused by a crackdown against protesting citizens. The city faced a blackout of mobile and internet communications for almost a week. While the mobile networks have been restored, the internet has been shut down since December 28.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has taken notice of the unofficial obstruction of information in Gwadar and asked the government to shed its tacit policy of relegating Balochistan to second-class status.
The unrest erupted when police raided a sit-in protest camp and arrested members and leaders of the Haq Do Tehreek Gwadar (HDT) movement (in English: Give Gwadar Its Rights). This was followed by mass demonstrations against the crackdown of the police and paramilitary forces.
67. What Was Behind the Chinese Foreign Minister’s Midnight Stopover in Bangladesh?
Shannon Tiezzi, The Diplomat, January 11, 2023
COMMENT – Interesting that Qin Gang (the PRC’s new Foreign Minister) didn’t stop in Pakistan, the PRC’s ‘all weather friend.’ I wonder if it had anything to do with the unpopularity of Beijing’s interference in Pakistan and the massive unrest it is causing.
I suspect that both Islamabad and Beijing would have this to say: “Move along, nothing to see here!”
68. Railway Talks with China Collapse as Uganda Turns to Turkey
Fred Ojambo, Burhan Yuksekkas, and Lucille Liu, Bloomberg, January 12, 2023
OPINION PIECES
69. China and the US are locked in a cold war. We must win it. Here's how we will
Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Representative Mike Gallagher, Fox News, December 8, 2023
The greatest threat to the United States is the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). America spent decades pursuing policies that welcomed China into the international system. But since then, instead of embracing freedom or becoming a responsible stakeholder, Beijing has flouted international norms while exporting totalitarianism, aggression, and ideological control.
To win the new Cold War, we must respond to Chinese aggression with tough policies to strengthen our economy, rebuild our supply chains, speak out for human rights, stand against military aggression, and end the theft of Americans’ personal information, intellectual property, and jobs.
70. China’s chip industry is struggling
Ian Williams, The Spectator, January 8, 2023
China is entering the new year with its tech ambitions under a Covid cloud. The enormous cost of the now abandoned zero-Covid policy has badly strained government finances, and the communist party’s pledge to build a world-beating chip industry, already reeling from American sanctions, is falling victim to the familiar ills of cost, waste and corruption.
A much hyped one trillion yuan ($145 billion) investment plan is reportedly on hold. Costly subsidies have born little fruit but they have encouraged graft and provoked sanctions. As a result, government officials are looking at alternative ways of encouraging growth in the semi-conductor industry, according to Bloomberg.
71. When Will Wall Street Realize That China Is a Bad Investment?
Robby Stephany Saunders, Newsweek, January 11, 2023
For two years, China has aggressively pursued a zero-COVID policy of strict lockdowns. Beijing's harsh enforcement of this approach has generated widespread internal opposition—and demonstrated the heavy-handedness of President Xi Jinping's authoritarian regime. But now, in the face of significant supply chain disruptions, Xi has chosen to lift the quarantine. Wall Street is praising the move—and calling for new investments in China. However, little has changed within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and U.S. investors would be wise to steer clear of such a flawed, totalitarian regime.
There's an obvious risk when it comes to investment in China: Beijing's continuing opacity. Consider the recent, sudden disappearance of export data for Xinjiang—the region of western China that's home to the slave labor of thousands of ethnic Uyghurs. Now that U.S. law has banned Chinese goods produced by Uyghur forced labor, Beijing has simply removed Xinjiang's export data from its economic reports.
COMMENT – I suspect this will just another ‘Lucy with the football’ moment for Wall Street’s Charlie Brown.
72. Ukraine, Japan and the Korean War’s 21st-Century Parallel
Vance Serchuk, Wall Street Journal, January 12, 2023
As in 1950, destabilizing war is forcing the West to get serious about defense a continent away.
When Russian forces surged into Ukraine in February 2022, the conflict seemed to spell calamity for the U.S.-led order in Asia. Just as Washington was turning its attention to the Indo-Pacific, a conflagration in Europe promised to distract America from the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party. But nearly a year later, the Ukraine war hasn’t doomed the balance of power in Asia; instead, it may be stabilizing it.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Japan, whose prime minister, Fumio Kishida, visits the White House Friday following historic changes in Tokyo’s national-security and military strategies. Among the bold moves announced last month: a pledge to double defense spending to 2% of gross domestic product by 2027 and to add powerful new capabilities such as long-range missiles to its arsenal. This means that Japan, currently the world’s ninth-largest military spender, could move to third place within five years, behind only the U.S. and China. Already this year its defense budget is due to grow more than 25%.
Tokyo’s embrace of realpolitik is a gift to the free world. It’s also been anything but abrupt. Japan has been slowly modernizing its military and national-security institutions over the past decade with an eye toward an increasingly assertive China. But officials say Russia’s attack on Kyiv helped accelerate these efforts in ways unthinkable 12 months ago. As Mr. Kishida warned last year in previewing the shift: “Ukraine today could be East Asia tomorrow.”
73. Enes Kanter shows that the NBA is in the tank for China
John Stossel, New York Post, January 6, 2023
74. China Bids to Rule the Commercial Waves
Christopher R. O’Dea, Wall Street Journal, January 9, 2023
Beijing is building a maritime logistics empire that could be an advantage in a future conflict with the West.
A shipping company with deep ties to Chinese state-owned companies purchased container terminals in New York and New Jersey in December, raising serious questions about the ability and willingness of the West to counter China’s strategic capability. China’s growing maritime commercial logistics empire poses a direct threat to the liberal international order. Beijing is building a platform for control of oceanic commerce and an amphibious invasion force that is extending the frontier of Chinese Communist Party influence to U.S. shores.
The consolidation of the global container-shipping industry into three alliances in 2016 opened the door for a new type of global organization operating largely beyond the reach of national regulators. Shipping companies formed the alliances to manage cargo capacity after price cutting led to the bankruptcy of a major shipping line in 2016. Alliance regulations bar shipping lines from fixing prices but allow them significant leeway to buy terminals and inland logistics assets. Operationally, alliance members often concentrate container service at alliance-owned terminals, which can make ports more dependent on a dominant alliance.
China controls one of the shipping alliances. The Ocean Alliance is dominated by Cosco Shipping, a Chinese state-owned company that is the world’s second-largest operator of ports—and is ultimately accountable to the Communist Party. The other members of the Ocean Alliance are Taiwan-based Evergreen Line and CMA CGM, a family-owned company based in Marseille, France, with deep ties to Chinese state-owned companies.
Cosco and other Chinese state-owned port and shipping companies have been steadily expanding their holdings in the West since 2000. By some analysts’ count, Chinese companies own or operate terminals in 96 ports in 53 countries. But it is the relative handful of terminals Chinese state-owned companies control in ports serving major population centers in the West that creates the greatest exposure to Chinese leverage.
Control of ports and terminals gives China economic and political influence over host-country governments where Chinese state-owned enterprises operate critical infrastructure. The contracts are even referred to as “concessions,” aptly implying that Western governments accept the superior containerized logistics capabilities that the Chinese companies have developed since acquiring the American technology in the late 1970s.
The newest salvo in China’s maritime commercial expansion came on Dec. 7, when CMA CGM said it is buying container terminals in New York and New Jersey. Most of the scant mainstream news coverage failed to note CMA CGM’s significant financial and operational links with Chinese state-owned companies. In 2013, CMA CGM sold 49% of its own terminal subsidiary to China Merchants Holdings (International). In 2015 the Export-Import Bank of China extended to CMA CGM $1 billion in financing to buy ships from Chinese shipyards. That funding has helped CMA CGM become one of the largest logistics enterprises in the world, with commanding positions in the supply chains for automotive parts and electronics. Satellite photos of Chinese shipyards show CMA CGM’s newest liquid-natural-gas-powered vessels being built alongside Chinese aircraft carriers.
Through the Maritime Security Program, the U.S. Transportation Department maintains a fleet of privately owned vessels intended to provide shipping for national-security purposes. This fleet includes seven vessels operated by container-shipping company APL, which CMA CGM acquired in 2016. In 2021 the Transportation Department approved replacement of an eighth APL vessel with one from CMA CGM.
U.S. allies including Greece, Canada, Germany and Israel have turned to Cosco and other Chinese state-owned shipping companies to invest in their terminals or build entire ports, sometimes over strenuous objections from Washington. Singapore and France are dependent on Chinese container volume or have national-champion companies that are business partners with the Chinese companies. If the bellicose rhetoric about imminent naval war with China leads to combat in the Western Pacific, prompting China to allow only Ocean Alliance vessels access to its ports, will those countries risk being cut off from Asian supply lines to side with the U.S.? A cold-eyed appraisal of the logistical situation suggests that’s a long shot.
Adm. Raymond Spruance, who helped devise the island-hopping strategy the U.S. used in the Pacific Theater during World War II—and then carried out the plan as commander of Fifth Fleet—wrote that a sound logistics plan determines the success or failure of military operations. The Chinese have such a plan for their economic campaign against America and the West. At the moment, the U.S. has nothing.
COMMENT – Worth reading this OpEd in full.
75. The Chinese Communist Party Wants the Property Bubble Back
Robert Foyle Hunwick, Foreign Policy, January 10, 2023
Personal and political fortunes were made in two decades of real estate madness.
76. China's elderly pay ultimate price for COVID missteps
Katsuji Nakazawa, Nikkei Asia, January 12, 2023
Senior citizens die at unprecedented pace, leaving families devastated.
77. Caught in the crossfire: Why EU states should discuss strategic export controls
Tobias Gehrke and Julian Ringhof, European Council on Foreign Relations, January 11, 2023
The latest US export controls on semiconductor technologies traded with China mark the beginning of a new era for global technology trade. European states need to urgently discuss strategic export controls in order to participate in it.