Matt Turpin's China Articles - July 16, 2023
Friends,
The NATO Summit in Lithuania wrapped up this week and Beijing was not pleased that it was called out in a substantial way.
The Alliance’s joint communiqué condemned the PRC at length for not only supporting Moscow’s brutal war against Ukraine, but also the PRC’s territorial expansion, economic coercion, and threats against its neighbors in the Indo-Pacific:
The People’s Republic of China’s stated ambitions and coercive policies challenge our interests, security and values. The PRC employs a broad range of political, economic, and military tools to increase its global footprint and project power, while remaining opaque about its strategy, intentions and military build-up. The PRC’s malicious hybrid and cyber operations and its confrontational rhetoric and disinformation target Allies and harm Alliance security. The PRC seeks to control key technological and industrial sectors, critical infrastructure, and strategic materials and supply chains. It uses its economic leverage to create strategic dependencies and enhance its influence. It strives to subvert the rules-based international order, including in the space, cyber and maritime domains.
We remain open to constructive engagement with the PRC, including to build reciprocal transparency, with a view to safeguarding the Alliance’s security interests. We are working together responsibly, as Allies, to address the systemic challenges posed by the PRC to Euro-Atlantic security and ensure NATO’s enduring ability to guarantee the defence and security of Allies. We are boosting our shared awareness, enhancing our resilience and preparedness, and protecting against the PRC’s coercive tactics and efforts to divide the Alliance. We will stand up for our shared values and the rules-based international order, including freedom of navigation.
The deepening strategic partnership between the PRC and Russia and their mutually reinforcing attempts to undercut the rules-based international order run counter to our values and interests. We call on the PRC to play a constructive role as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, to condemn Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, to abstain from supporting Russia’s war effort in any way, to cease amplifying Russia’s false narrative blaming Ukraine and NATO for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, and to adhere to the purposes and principles of the UN Charter. We particularly call on the PRC to act responsibly and refrain from providing any lethal aid to Russia.
While the communiqué did not mention Taiwan, during a press conference NATO Secretary General Jen Stoltenberg warned of the PRC’s substantial military build-up and threatening of Taiwan.
Paragraphs like these were unimaginable in a NATO communiqué eighteen months ago. Beijing’s support for Moscow, as well as its threats to annex Taiwan, has resulted in an outcome that no amount of careful diplomacy or arm-twisting within the Alliance could have. It has brought European and Canadian members of NATO into much closer alignment with the United States and Japan over the threat posed by the PRC. The Chinese Communist Party only has itself to blame for creating this situation.
Instead of reflecting on these developments and recalibrating its own strategy (perhaps a bit of Leninist self-criticism and rectification), the Party will doubled down on its coercive approach to the rest of the world.
As NATO issued its communiqué, the PRC Mission to the European Union issued its own statement condemning NATO’s “eastward movement into the Asia-Pacific region” and warning that “any act that jeopardizes China’s legitimate rights and interests will be met with a resolute response.”
Even before New Zealand’s Prime Minister Chris Hipkins boarded his flight to return from the NATO Summit, the PRC Ambassador to New Zealand threated Wellington in a statement not to “open the door to the devil” and that New Zealand should disavow association with NATO because "first and foremost, partnering with a warmongering military bloc is against both regional and global commitment to promoting peace and stability." Considering that Hipkins visited Xi Jinping just a few weeks ago and, in a diplomatic coup for Beijing, refused to acknowledge that Xi Jinping is a dictator, it is amazing how tone deaf the Party is on how this will be received in Wellington.
As if to confirm all the points made by NATO Members, the PRC defense ministry announced on Saturday that Russian forces would soon participate in yet another joint military exercise in the Sea of Japan. Without a sense of irony, the ministry justified the exercise in a statement: “This joint exercise aims at enhancing the level of strategic cooperation between the Chinese and Russian militaries, as well as strengthening both sides’ ability to jointly safeguard regional peace and stability when dealing with various security challenges.”
The Party understands that a new cold war has begun.
Beijing and Moscow face a collection of nations which have yet to fully consolidate, so they want to make it as difficult as possible for a coalition to form against them as they simultaneously seek to secure their own positions. Xi’s principal partner, Putin, has failed to split NATO with his war in Ukraine and has essentially achieved the opposite. This makes Xi’s position much more difficult. I suspect that Xi believed back in early February 2022 that giving his ascent to Putin’s invasion plans held very few downsides for the PRC. This assumption has proved wrong.
As this plays out, countries around the world will be forced to make choices as Richard Fontaine argues in his piece in Foreign Affairs titled “The Myth of Neutrality” (#2).
—
Changing gears, several news outlets reported this week on a set of PRC export numbers that I thought were interesting.
One of the most popular narratives out there is that “decoupling” cannot happen because our economies are becoming more, not less, integrated even as the geopolitical landscape becomes more tense. Under this set of assumptions, the most that we could do is to “derisk” our most sensitive supply chains because it would be too costly to pursue anything more extreme.
Then this week we saw evidence that as geopolitical tensions increase and the PRC becomes increasingly hostile to foreigners, that companies and investors act rationally and reduce their exposure to the PRC… opening the door to further decoupling as commercial and financial actors become convinced that uncertainty makes long-term investment in the PRC look unwise.
From “Chinese exports fall in June as economic problems mount,” Financial Times, July 13, 2023
For an economy that is still overwhelmingly dependent on exports to drive economic growth, particularly when real estate and debt aren’t options and the earnings of PRC citizens aren’t high enough to consume excess production, these year-on-year drops in exports are deeply troubling for the Party’s leadership.
From “China's exports fall most in three years as global economy falters,” Reuters, July 13, 2023
One might argue that this is simply a blip, due more to the fact that the importers of PRC goods are struggling rather than any real shift away from economic integration. But that would be to ignore the PRC policies that are driving this inevitable decoupling.
While readers know about the recent announcements on restricting exports of various gallium and germanium products, since at least 2020 the PRC has been restricting the export of graphite to Sweden, a critical mineral used in producing lithium-ion batteries. Beijing is trying to kill the Swedish battery industry to protect its own commercial advantage and gain the commanding heights of critical economic sectors. This power play will only resurrect the concerns that gripped European and American business communities when the Party released ‘Made in China 2025’ back in 2015.
The one export sector, automobiles, that appears bright for Beijing is perhaps the one sector that keeps Europe from aligning completely with Washington and Tokyo. German automobile manufacturers remain convinced that their growth prospects are completely dependent on expanding their sales in the China market. As protectionism in the PRC reduces foreign auto sales in China, the transition to electric vehicles reduces the competitive advantage of the Germans, and PRC electric vehicle makers seek to dump massively subsidized EVs on the European market, it is only a matter of time before the German automobile lobby turns on Beijing.
From “Europe can’t decide how to unplug from China,” The Economist, May 15, 2023.
As the revenues of German automobile companies in the PRC contract and as PRC EV makers impinge on German auto sales across Europe, I suspect Berlin will become increasingly less sympathetic to the ‘change through trade’ dogma of the centrist parties that have maintained power in Berlin over the past several decades.
It would be better if our European friends could anticipate this shift and prepare themselves, but I fear that the structure of political and economic decision-making in Europe will prevent them from doing so. In the meantime, Washington, Seoul, Tokyo and others will adapt to this changing world by reducing their economic exposure to the PRC.
Thanks for reading!
Matt
MUST READ
1. Chinese Women Economists Who Met Yellen Called Traitors Online
Bloomberg, July 10, 2023
A group of Chinese female economists and entrepreneurs who dined with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen have been blasted by online nationalists for betraying their country by interacting with the US official.
While the Treasury department skipped identifying attendees from the meeting on Saturday, a group photograph of the gathering posted to China’s Twitter-like Weibo was used to identify some participants. It was not clear who first shared the image online.
COMMENT – I think it is critical to remember just how toxic Chinese race-based ultra-nationalism has become under the Party’s guidance and how inhospitable the Party has made the PRC to foreigners and friends of foreigners.
The Party makes it abundantly clear that sympathy and respect for the outside world will be met with ridicule and threats. This only accelerates a sense of “us versus them” and zero-sum thinking across Chinese society, even as spokespersons for the PRC accuse others of stoking those same hostilities.
To the outside world, the Party demands respect, dialogue, and multilateralism, while domestically the Party encourages the vilification of Chinese who would pursue these efforts as “race traitors” and tools of “hostile foreign forces.”
I think we must conclude that these efforts are intentional on the part of the Party, rather than some sort of unintended byproduct.
Stoking race-based, ultra-nationalism and creating the sense that all foreigners are to be despised unless they show unflinching support for the Party (side-eye at you former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating), is a feature, not a bug, of the Party’s strategy. It is meant to condition the Chinese people for the sacrifices that the Party will demand of them as the Party wages a new cold war against its enemies.
More on Paul Keating as he sought to vilify NATO last week:
In speaking about NATO’s leader: “Of all the people on the international stage the supreme fool among them is Jens Stoltenberg, the current secretary-general of NATO.”
In speaking about ‘European militarism’: “Exporting that malicious poison to Asia would be akin to Asia welcoming the plague on itself.”
2. The Myth of Neutrality
Richard Fontaine, Foreign Affairs, July 12, 2023
It is true that Washington does not insist on an all-or-nothing, us-versus-them choice from even its closest partners. Given the extensive links that all countries—including the United States—have with China, attempting to forge a coherent anti-China bloc would be unlikely to succeed. Even the United States would not join such an arrangement if it required ending its economic relationship with China, which would come at a tremendous cost.
But it may not be possible much longer for countries to simply sit on the fence. When it comes to a host of policy areas, including technology, defense, diplomacy, and trade, Washington and Beijing are, indeed, forcing others to take sides. Countries will inevitably be caught up in superpower rivalry, and they will be required to step across the line, one way or another. The U.S.-Chinese competition is an inescapable feature of today’s world, and Washington should stop pretending otherwise. Instead, it must work to make the right choices as attractive as possible.
COMMENT – This piece needed to be written and I’m glad Richard Fontaine did.
It has become a dogma that “we can’t ask countries to pick sides,” when we should recognize that making choices is an inescapable part of policymaking. Pretending that we don’t have to make tough choices is irresponsible and only makes conflict more, not less, likely.
I’m reminded of the multiple occasions that German Chancellor Scholtz has said that Germany refuses to join a “military bloc” and in the next sentence comments on how NATO is the central pillar of German security policy.
3. For North Koreans in China, Seeking Freedom Is More Perilous Than Ever
Choe Sang-Hun, New York Times, July 9, 2023
The North Korean software engineer was desperate.
He had been sent to northeastern China in 2019 to earn money for the North Korean regime. After working long hours under the constant watch of his minders, he found an email address on a website and sent a harrowing message in 2021: “I am writing at the risk of losing my life,” pleaded the engineer.
A young woman who had been smuggled by human traffickers from North Korea into China in 2018 contacted the owner of the same website early this year. She had planned to defect to South Korea, but instead was being held captive in a Chinese border town and forced to make money through cybersex. “Please help us escape this house,” she wrote.
The website belonged to the Rev. Chun Ki-won, a Christian pastor in Seoul who is widely known for aiding North Korean refugees fleeing through China, the route almost all defectors take. He has often been condemned by Pyongyang and was once imprisoned in China for helping hundreds of North Koreans reach South Korea or the United States.
But now, the job of aiding North Korean defectors in China has become “all but impossible,” Mr. Chun said.
4. U.S. Government Emails Hacked in Suspected Chinese Espionage Campaign
Dustin Volz, Robert McMillan, and Warren P. Strobel, Wall Street Journal, July 12, 2023
Hack is seen as part of a suspected cyber-espionage campaign to access data in sensitive computer networks.
Hackers linked to China breached email accounts at more than two dozen organizations including some U.S. government agencies, officials and Microsoft researchers said, part of a suspected cyber-espionage campaign to access data in sensitive computer networks.
The new penetration has prompted alarm among some officials and security researchers and is being viewed as part of an espionage campaign that potentially compromised valuable information belonging to the U.S. government, according to people familiar with the matter. Senior Western intelligence officials have grown increasingly worried in recent years about the ability of Chinese hackers to orchestrate especially impressive and stealthy attacks that in some cases have been able to evade detection for years.
“Last month, U.S. government safeguards identified an intrusion in Microsoft’s cloud security, which affected unclassified systems. Officials immediately contacted Microsoft to find the source and vulnerability in their cloud service,” Adam Hodge, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said. “We continue to hold the procurement providers of the U.S. government to a high security threshold.”
…
Senior U.S. officials have long viewed Beijing as a top cyber-espionage threat and for years have been alarmed at Chinese hacking groups’s success in compromising military targets and defense contractors to steal advanced military technology. U.S. intelligence agencies have observed improving tradecraft from hackers suspected of working on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party. In an annual worldwide threat assessment published earlier this year, U.S. intelligence officials said China “probably currently represents the broadest, most active, and persistent cyber espionage threat to U.S. government and private-sector networks.”
COMMENT – What sort of retaliation or costs will the Biden’s Administration impose on Beijing for these attacks?
5. Why China Has a Giant Pile of Debt
Keith Bradsher, New York Times, July 8, 2023
A major lender abroad, China is facing a debt bomb at home: trillions of dollars owed by local governments, their financial affiliates, and real estate developers.
China, which has lent nearly $1 trillion to some 150 developing countries, has been reluctant to cancel large debts owed by countries struggling to make ends meet. That is at least in part because China is facing a debt bomb at home: trillions of dollars owed by local governments, their mostly off-the-books financial affiliates, and real estate developers.
One of the main issues for Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen during her visit to Beijing this week is whether she can persuade China to cooperate more to address an evolving debt crisis facing lower-income countries. But China’s state-controlled banking system is wary of accepting losses on foreign loans when it faces far greater losses on loans within China.
How much debt does China have?
It’s hard to know exactly because official data is scant. Researchers at JPMorgan Chase calculated last month that overall debt within China — including households, companies and the government — had reached 282 percent of the country’s annual economic output. That compares with an average of 256 percent in developed economies around the world and 257 percent in the United States.
What distinguishes China from most other countries is how fast that debt has accumulated relative to the size of its economy. By comparison, in the United States or even deeply indebted Japan, debt has risen less precipitously. The steep increase in China’s debt, more than doubling compared with the size of its economy since the global financial crisis 15 years ago, makes managing it harder.
China’s lending to developing countries is small relative to its domestic debt, representing less than 6 percent of China’s annual economic output. But these loans are particularly sensitive politically. Despite heavy censorship, periodic complaints emerge on Chinese social media that banks should have lent the money to poor households and regions at home, not abroad. Accepting heavy losses on these loans would be very unpopular within China.
How did China get into such a deep debt hole?
It started with real estate, which suffers from overbuilding, falling prices and beleaguered potential buyers. In the past two years, several dozen real estate developers that borrowed money from overseas investors have defaulted on those debts, including two more in recent days. Developers have struggled to continue paying far larger debts to banks inside China.
COMMENT – Going back to the points above about the PRC’s drop in exports, one dynamic is that developing countries that have significant problems repaying the debts they have to Beijing for infrastructure projects they did not need, likely cannot buy the sorts of exports that Beijing needs to sell to keep up growth.
And as the Party pounds the drum of race-based, ultra-nationalism, Chinese citizens will become even more skeptical of debt relief to developing countries, let alone additional lending.
Authoritarianism
6. Hong Kong Activist’s Family Quizzed by Police, Local Media Say
Kari Soo Lindberg, Bloomberg, July 11, 2023
Hong Kong national security police have questioned the family of pro-democracy activist Nathan Law, local media reported, a week after authorities placed a HK$1,000,000 ($127,750) bounty on his head.
Law’s parents and his elder brother were quizzed by the authorities, local media including Sing Tao Daily reported on Tuesday, without citing anyone. They were later released, according to the newspaper, which said their homes in the city’s Tung Chung area were searched at about 6 a.m. that morning.
COMMENT – Mafia-like behavior, Hong Kong’s once honorable police force has become an arm of Chinese Communist Party intimidation.
7. Chinese Foreign Minister’s Unusual 12-Day Absence Draws Scrutiny
Bloomberg, July 7, 2023
8. How China Exports Secrecy
Christopher Walker, Foreign Affairs, July 11, 2023
Beijing’s Global Assault on Transparency and Open Government.
China thrives on secrecy. Beijing’s approach to governance, which relies on surveillance and control rather than openness and deliberation, requires secrecy. And to sustain it, the Chinese government suppresses independent journalism, censors digital information, and closely guards the kind of information that democracies freely disclose.
This commitment to secrecy and censorship is a long-standing feature of the Chinese Communist Party’s rule. But under President Xi Jinping, whose ideas about governance may shape the world for years to come, the CCP has grown even more furtive. In recent months, the Chinese government has obscured the deaths of as many as one million people after it abruptly abandoned its harsh “zero COVID” policy. It has manipulated and withheld data about the pandemic. And it has broadened its draconian counterespionage laws to assert even greater control over China’s information environment.
Beijing has also emerged as a stealth exporter of secrecy abroad. This was seen most vividly in China’s manipulation of the World Health Organization. Chinese authorities suppressed domestic discussion of the Wuhan outbreak and refused to share information with global health authorities, hobbling the WHO’s response and forcing millions of people beyond China’s borders to pay a terrible price. Later, Beijing tried to manipulate the outcome of WHO inquiries into the origins of COVID-19. More than three years since the onset of the pandemic, Chinese authorities continue to resist WHO requests for data that might shed light on the source of the virus.
But it’s not just international organizations that have been affected by Beijing’s obsession with secrecy. As China projects its political, economic, and technological power globally through big-ticket infrastructure contracts, educational and media partnerships, and agreements to supply surveillance technologies, Beijing’s model of concealment is spreading beyond China’s borders. Countries striking deals with Beijing are discovering that they are expected to follow China’s lead, limiting transparency and accountability just as Chinese leaders do at home. The result of this pattern of engagement is a gradual erosion of global norms of transparency and open government—and the rise of new ones of concealment and opacity.
HUSH MONEY
When Chinese government entities make agreements with foreign governments or businesses, they often demand that the details be kept secret. The Mauritius Safe City Project—under which the Chinese technology giant Huawei partnered with Mauritius Telecom and the Mauritian police to install intrusive surveillance systems, including 4,000 cameras with facial recognition and license plate recording capabilities—is a case in point. The adoption of the project was opaque and proceeded with scant public debate. Despite its enormous $500 million price tag, financed by a loan from the Export-Import Bank of China, the initiative was casually announced in the Mauritius National Assembly and has since evaded oversight. Mauritian officials even waived a competitive bidding requirement for public procurements in order to select Mauritius Telecom to implement the project. When members of Mauritian civil society raised questions about the initiative, government officials hid behind the confidentiality clauses signed by the Mauritian police, Mauritius Telecom, and Huawei.
A similar scenario played out in Serbia, where the government signed a deal with Huawei to install a comprehensive surveillance system of 8,100 cameras. Citizens were told that these cameras would improve safety and that the technology could not be abused. But as was the case in Mauritius, no meaningful public debate preceded the system’s adoption and citizens were told little about the deal. Where such systems are imposed on uninformed publics, governments can gain effectively unchecked capabilities of surveillance and control.
Given the rapid pace at which advanced digital platforms are being adopted, the risk of entrenching authoritarian norms of surveillance is rising. In many countries, authorities are averse to disclosing information about the contracts through which they procure surveillance technologies. As a result, it can be exceedingly difficult for nongovernmental actors to discern who is actually behind these initiatives. Clarity on this is made more difficult by the overlap between the Chinese government and Chinese companies. In such an environment, China’s penchant for secrecy risks infecting other countries, especially those with weak institutions.
CONTRACT, WHAT CONTRACT?
Resistance to transparency is spreading. In Latin America, the Chinese government makes use of confidential debt contracts, which bar their signatories from disclosing their terms to the public. These deals, which are typically sealed swiftly and in secret, often sideline civil society and even national legislatures. Credit contracts between Chinese banks and the Ecuadorian government, for example, only came to light after the Panama Papers leak in 2016.
The story is the same elsewhere. In Canada, universities that wish to sign contracts with Huawei for research initiatives have been prohibited from discussing them publicly. The same is true in Kenya. The country’s $5 billion standard-gauge railroad, which was completed in 2017, is its most expensive infrastructure project, and it has been plagued by accusations of corruption. Local activists seeking information on the project petitioned the courts to release loan contracts signed by Chinese and Kenyan authorities. But once again, these agreements’ confidentiality clauses were invoked as a way of rebuffing the activists’ request for transparency.
China’s insistence on secrecy is reversing decades of progress toward greater transparency.
Again and again, countries that do business with the Chinese government or its affiliated companies are required not to disclose the terms of their agreements. In some cases, they are required to keep secret the very existence of contracts. According to a 2021 study of 100 debt contracts between Chinese state-owned entities and government borrowers in 24 countries, China’s unusual lending terms were highly standardized and did not differ significantly by geographic region, hinting at the globalized nature of Beijing’s secrecy push.
In instances when activists or elected legislators have requested more information about these projects, governments have repeatedly invoked the confidentiality clauses in their agreements with Chinese companies. Where information has come to light, it has been unearthed by journalists and civil society activists, not disclosed by governments. This insistence on secrecy is reversing decades of progress toward greater transparency and openness and encouraging governments to resist accountability. With each deal done in the darkness, Beijing pushes countries toward less transparent and less accountable governance standards.
China’s emphasis on secrecy is especially corrosive in fragile, at-risk countries whose roots of institutional governance are shallow. This has real implications for institutions such as the Open Government Partnership and Millennium Challenge Corporation that have sought to encourage the adoption of openness and transparency as governance norms. China’s approach is disincentivizing such norms.
In short, China’s global secrecy drive is exacting economic as well as noneconomic costs. Opaque government processes and the high levels of corruption that often go with them can take a toll on economic productivity, reducing countries’ attractiveness to foreign investors. These qualities can also erode the integrity and sustainability of independent institutions, thereby undermining standards and practices of accountable governance. Finally, secrecy threatens the nongovernmental sphere, including the media, universities, and technology firms. To the extent that Beijing succeeds through the exertion of sharp power in weakening the ability of such institutions to scrutinize and interrogate its deals, the cycle of secrecy is bound to intensify.
COMMENT – Great piece by Chris Walker at the National Endowment of Democracy.
The PRC is destroying decades of work by international development agencies, civil society organizations, and multilateral institutions to improve the governance of countries around the world. Since the Party cannot compete effectively in an international environment that values transparency and the rule of law, Beijing seeks to undermine those values and turn back the clock.
In many cases, those same organizations, activists, and researchers who have spent their lives advocating for these values have refused to recognize the damage the Party is doing to their life’s work.
Beijing has effectively employed the tropes of ‘Western Imperialism’ and capitalized on the self-doubt/self-loathing of many of these progressive entities and individuals, to dismantle the very infrastructure that sought to enable developing countries to establish their own institutions and create greater prosperity for their citizens.
9. Hong Kong becomes China's 'wolf warrior' in Fukushima water fight
Kenji Kawase and Kensaku Ihara, Nikkei Asia, July 11, 2023
10. China Puts Out Welcome Mat for Some Americans, Keeps Door Shut for Others
Lili Pike, The Messenger, July 10, 2023
11. ‘Keep the blade clean’: Xi Jinping’s corruption investigators turn focus on themselves
Edward White, Financial Times, July 7, 2023
12. How Do 'Barbie' and Blackpink Figure in a Dangerous Territorial Dispute?
Mike Ives, New York Times, July 7, 2023
13. Bain Gets Courtesy Call from Top Shanghai Party Official
Elaine Yu, Wall Street Journal, July 10, 2023
14. Can China’s indie film-makers find a way around the censors?
Alex Colville, Financial Times, July 8, 2023
Environmental Harms
15. Coal's No Stranded Asset. It's a Security Blanket
Dan Murtaugh, Bloomberg, July 7, 2023
16. John Kerry to Visit China to Restart Climate Negotiations
Lisa Friedman, New York Times, July 6, 2023
17. Deep-sea mining tussle pits France and Germany against China
Kenza Bryan, Financial Times, July 9, 2023
18. Higher investment in critical minerals boosts chances of meeting climate targets
Harry Dempsey, Financial Times, July 11, 2023
19. Mongolia in the middle: China and Russia may split over the allure of renewables
Joseph Webster, The Interpreter, June 27, 2023
Foreign Interference and Coercion
20. Buoy Battle in the Spratly Islands
Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, July 11, 2023
21. Winning friends by training workers is China’s new gambit
Shibani Mahtani and Joshua Irwandi, Washington Post, July 10, 2023
The rice fields in this part of East Java are still plowed by buffalo. There is little in the way of manufacturing or tourism. Every year thousands of residents follow a well-worn path to jobs as domestic helpers in Hong Kong or construction workers in Saudi Arabia.
Ziofani Alfirdaus, however, believes he will have a career and a future here. The 16-year-old is clear on the source of his optimism — China.
His local school hosts a Luban Workshop, a Chinese-funded and -directed vocational training program that teaches students how to service Chinese electric-vehicle engines, operate Chinese commercial drones and assemble Chinese robots. The educational assistance, all provided at no cost, has revolutionized the provincial school here with new technology and machinery to train students, as well as trips to vocational schools in China to build the skills of Indonesian educators.
Students who have gone through the workshops emerge sold on the merits of Chinese technology and, by extension, China itself, teachers and alumni say. Alfirdaus said he didn’t know what drones were until he started studying how to operate them, and now hopes to make a career using drones to make video and other visual content. China’s technology, he said, “will be helpful to all of mankind.”
22. Insight: Dispute over China's embassy in London strains ties with Britain
Andrew Macaskill and Elizabeth Piper, Reuters, July 12, 2023
23. Xi Jinping, meeting Russian parliament head, vows more Beijing-Moscow cooperation
Liu Zhen, South China Morning Post, July 11, 2023
24. China opposes UK's 'discriminatory actions' against China-linked deals
Reuters, July 12, 2023.
25. China decries NATO’s ‘eastward march’ as Indo-Pacific leaders gather at summit
Finbarr Bermingham, South China Morning Post, July 12, 2023
26. Lithuania slams China in new Indo-Pacific strategy
Ken Moriyasu, Nikkei Asia, July 7, 2023
27. Opioid crisis: US and China at odds over influx of fentanyl
Amy Hawkins, The Guardian, July 12, 2023
28. In Asia data flows are part of a new great game
The Economist, July 10, 2023
29. Solomon Islands Opens China Embassy in Sign of Closer Ties
Bloomberg, July 10, 2023
30. 'Visionary and insightful politician': Chinese media fawns over Paul Keating's criticism of NATO, saying he 'hit the nail on the head'
Adriana Mageros, Sky News, July 12, 2023
31. Yellen Says U.S. Doesn’t Seek ‘Winner Take All’ Fight with China
Brian Spegele, Wall Street Journal, July 7, 2023
32. A Trillion-Dollar Opportunity: China’s Pivot to the Middle East Set to Fuel Investment Boom
Elaine Yu, Wall Street Journal, July 7, 2023
33. China and the U.S., Still Adversaries, Are Talking. That’s a Start.
Alan Rappeport and Keith Bradsher, New York Times, July 9, 2023
34. UK ministers intervene in 8 deals involving China-linked investment
Michael O’Dwyer, Financial Times, July 12, 2023
Human Rights and Religious Persecution
35. Defending the Global Human Rights System from Authoritarian Assault: How Democracies Can Retake the Initiative
Rana Siu Inboden, National Endowment for Democracy, July 2023
36. Milwaukee Tool Is Questioned Over Alleged Use of Chinese Forced Labor
Richard Vanderford, Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2023
37. Corporate ethics czar launches forced-labour probes into Nike, Dynasty Gold in China
Dylan Robertson, The Star, July 11, 2023
38. The secret life of Badiucao, China’s Banksy
Ian Williams, The Spectator, July 8, 2023
Industrial Policies and Economic Espionage
39. China ends Ant Group's regulatory revamp with nearly $1 billion fine
Julie Zhu and Jane Xu, Reuters, July 07, 2023
40. AUKUS Pillar Two: Advancing the Capabilities of the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia
John Christianson, Sean Monaghan, and Di Cooke, CSIS, July 10, 2023
41. The West Again Learns That War Needs Industry
Daniel Michaels, Wall Street Journal, July 6, 2023
42. China’s global debt holdings are increasingly a liability for Beijing
Jacob Gunter, Aya Adachi, François Chimits, MERICS, July 4, 2023
43. European firms look for footing in China-U.S. spat, French execs say
Mathieu Rosemain and Leigh Thomas, Reuters, July 10, 2023
44. Inside the subsea cable firm secretly helping American take on China
Joe Brock, Reuters, July 6, 2023
45. US says it opposes export controls by China on metals, will consult allies
Kanishka Singh, Reuters, July 5, 2023
46. Chinese cars and TVs stream into Russia after South Korean exodus
Soma Kawakami, Nikkei Asia, July 7, 2023
47. US presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis supports revoking China’s trade status
Reuters, South China Morning Post, July 10, 2023
48. US Spies Issue Warnings Over Risks of Doing Business in China
Peter Martin, Bloomberg, June 30, 2023
49. US starts new round of audit inspections on China firms - source
Reuters, July 7, 2023
50. Tesla and Chinese rivals signal EV price war truce in ‘socialist values’ pledge
Edward White, Gloria Li, and Qianer Liu, Financial Times, July 6, 2023
51. German Businesses Bet Big on China, and They’re Starting to Worry
Erika Solomon, New York Times, July 6, 2023
52. China Controls Minerals That Run the World—and It Just Fired a Warning Shot at U.S.
John Emont, Wall Street Journal, July 7, 2023
53. Janet Yellen says security should not derail US-China economic relations
Demetri Sevastopulo and Joe Leahy, Financial Times, July 7, 2023
54. Sequoia China’s push into Singapore sets up fight against Indian arm
Mercedes Ruehl and Kaye Wiggins, Financial Times, July 9, 2023
55. China’s youth left behind as jobs crisis mounts
Sun Yu and Joe Leahy, Financial Times, July 10, 2023
56. EY China locked in dispute with global bosses over IT costs
Stephen Foley, Financial Times, July 12, 2023
57. Despite Yellen, U.S.-China Decoupling Has Momentum of Its Own
Nathaniel Taplin, Wall Street Journal, July 10, 2023
58. Is China Mired in a ‘Balance Sheet Recession’?
Jacky Wong, Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2023
59. China’s Reopening Trade Is Fizzling Out
Charley Grant, Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2023
60. In China, the Era of Western Carmakers Is Over
Yoko Kubota, Wall Street Journal, July 10, 2023
61. Hong Kong’s crypto grey zones lure Chinese visitors
William Langley and Chan Ho-him, Financial Times, July 11, 2023
62. DHL invests €500mn in Latin America as clients expand supply chains beyond China
Oliver Telling, Financial Times, July 12, 2023
63. ‘An Act of War’: Inside America’s Silicon Blockade Against China
Alex W. Palmer, New York Times, July 12, 2023
64. ‘Several Things Have Shocked Me’: An Ex-Insider on Business in China
Ravi Mattu, New York Times, July 8, 2023
Cyber & Information Technology
65. The US May Pay a Price for Escalating its Chip War on China
Debby Wu, Bloomberg, July 5, 2023
66. China just fought back in the semiconductor exports war. Here’s what you need to know.
Zeyi Yang, MIT Technology Review, July 10, 2023
67. ‘Solid innovation’: China’s Xi renews self-reliance call as US steps up tech war
Sylvie Zhuang, South China Morning Post, July 7, 2023
68. China beats SpaceX with world’s first methane-powered rocket launch
Zhang Tong, South China Morning Post, July 12, 2023
69. Shanghai court rules in favour of AMEC in its chip IP dispute with US firm Lam
Che Pan, South China Morning Post, July 11, 2023
70. Elon Musk says he has faith in China’s ability to develop artificial intelligence
Tracy Qu and Ann Cao, South China Morning Post, July 6, 2023
71. Huawei unveils latest AI model as ChatGPT boom rolls on
Cheng Ting-Fang and Lauly Li, Nikkei Asia, July 7, 2023
72. Will China’s Reliance on Taiwanese Chips Prevent a War?
David Sacks, Council on Foreign Relations, July 6, 2023
73. Beijing's regulatory crackdown wipes $1.1 trillion off Chinese Big Tech
Donny Kwok and Scott Murdoch, Reuters, July 12, 2023
74. U.S. Treasury warned Hong Kong banks on tech exports to Russia
Echo Wong and Pak Yiu, Nikkei Asia, July 6, 2023
75. One Reason the U.S. Can’t Quit China? Chips.
Ana Swanson, New York Times, July 8, 2023
Military and Security Threats
76. China Warplanes Make Biggest Taiwan Incursion in 3 Months
Cindy Wang and Kari Soo Lindberg, Bloomberg, July 12, 2023
77. Taiwan Has a Big National-Security Risk: It Imports 97% of Its Energy
Sha Hua, Wall Street Journal, July 7, 2023
Experts in Washington are beginning to fret about the island democracy’s ability to keep the lights on in a conflict with China.
78. Xi’s military visit ‘highlights concern over US intervention over Taiwan’
Minnie Chan, South China Morning Post, July 8, 2023
79. Full steam ahead for the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway?
Genevieve Donnellon-May, The Interpreter, June 1, 2023
80. China ramps up naval base works to accommodate rapidly growing fleet
Minnie Chan, South China Morning Post, July 9, 2023
81. Head of US think tank charged with acting as Chinese agent
Luc Cohen, Reuters, July 11, 2023
82. China Sends Warships and Fighter Jets Near Taiwan During Yellen's Beijing Visit
Associated Press, VOA, July 8, 2023
83. VIDEO – China Prepares for War: A Timeline
Hudson Institute, July 12, 2023
84. Taiwan plans massive safety drill to practise for possible China attack
Kathrin Hille, Financial Times, July 11, 2023
85. Indictment of Gal Luft, Called Key Witness by GOP, Clouds Biden Probe
James Fanelli and Lindsay Wise, Wall Street Journal, July 12, 2023
86. Taiwan disputes China’s claim of ability to sink US Navy aircraft carrier group
Kathrin Hille, Financial Times, July 7, 2023
One Belt, One Road Strategy
87. Troubled New Power Plant Leaves Jordan in Debt to China, Raising Concerns Over Beijing's Influence
Associated Press, VOA, July 9, 2023
88. Honduras probes Chinese interest in investing in $20 billion rail line
Reuters, July 8, 2023
89. China woos Papua New Guinea with free trade push
Rurika Imahashi and Iori Kawate, Nikkei Asia, July 12, 2023
Opinion Pieces
90. The threat of a US-China war requires a US-Israel reset
Elbridge Colby, Times of Israel, July 4, 2023
91. The China-Australia Relationship Is Still Close to the Rocks
Misha Zelinsky, Foreign Policy, July 6, 2023
92. China Puts a Bounty on My Head
Ted Hui, Wall Street Journal, July 9, 2023
93. China's grievances with the West are heard by the Global South
Hoang Thi Ha, Nikkei Asia, July 9, 2023
94. Ukraine's Not the Only State Signing Up for the American Empire
Hal Brands, Bloomberg, July 10, 2023
95. NATO Isn’t What It Says It Is
Grey Anderson and Thomas Meaney, New York Times, July 11, 2023
96. Tilting towards Washington, has India’s time over China come?
Shi Jiangtao, South China Morning Post, July 11, 2023