Matt Turpin's China Articles - March 26, 2023
Friends,
As reported by Politico, the Biden Administration is trying to broker a visit to Beijing by Treasury Secretary Yellen and Commerce Secretary Raimondo, as well as trying to arrange a Biden-Xi phone call and reschedule the Blinken visit to Beijing.
Apparently, we’ve learned very little about how to negotiate with the Chinese Communist Party.
Much as we did under Secretary of State Kerry during the Obama Administration, the United States is again acting like an ‘ardent suitor,’ desperate for Beijing’s attention. As we have learned, this encourages Beijing to withhold high-level communication as a weapon.
The fact that we are pursuing multiple meetings, on Beijing’s terms, simultaneously, while Xi still refuses to establish routine communications between the Defense Department and the PLA, shows our desperation and suggests that we still haven’t learned how to deal with the CCP effectively (NOTE: I raised this same point before the PRC spy balloon in the January 22nd issue of this newsletter when Tobias Burns reported in The Hill that Yellen was planning a trip to Beijing following a meeting with Vice Premier Liu He at Davos).
The reason why Beijing withholds high-level communication is because they think it is effective at getting the United States to moderate its behavior to something more acceptable to the interests of the PRC. It is a form of psychological conditioning. Xi and his advisors know the Administration is desperate to be seen meeting with them, so they practice patience and let commentators and business leaders pressure the Administration to show the right kind of contrition.
An aspect of this was on display during the testimony of General VanHerck to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. U.S. Northern Command had aircraft prepared to shoot down the PRC spy balloon off the coast of Alaska on January 28th, before it had flown over Canada and the rest of the United States. According to General VanHerck the Administration failed to provide permission to shoot it down. The Administration only did so five days later after members of the public spotted the spy balloon over Montana and reported it to the media.
Beijing is likely to conclude from that experience the Biden Administration was far more interested in proceeding with Secretary Blinken’s imminent visit to the PRC (along with visits by Secretaries Yellen and Raimondo), than jeopardizing the trip by openly acknowledging a Chinese violation of U.S. and Canadian sovereignty (mark that as a success for the Party’s psychological conditioning campaign).
Now, less than six weeks later, it appears the Administration is again seeking to send those same three cabinet secretaries to Beijing… even after Xi made an in person visit to an indicted war criminal in the Kremlin.
The very least the Administration could do is insist that Blinken’s counterpart, Foreign Minister Qin Gang, come to the United States and that open lines of communication be established between Austin and his Central Military Commission counterparts (one of the Vice Chairmen, not the Defense Minister) BEFORE Secretary Yellen or Secretary Raimondo visit Beijing. The optic, if the Blinken-Yellen-Raimondo visits were to proceed without any concessions from Beijing, is that the United States was in the wrong when Beijing violated U.S. and Canadian sovereignty.
I’m nearly certain that the Administration has convinced itself that they are being “grown-ups” by proceeding with the trips as if nothing has happened, but that is the kind of poor negotiating tactics that has gotten us into such a precarious situation. Beijing believes their tactics are successful because they keep getting proof from the Administration that holding communications hostage works.
I am not opposed to high-level communication between the United States and the People’s Republic. As permanent members of the UN Security Council and the two largest economies in the world we must communicate (and that is why we have Embassies in each other’s capitals). My objection is to our method of pursuing these meetings and phone calls.
My advice to the Biden Administration: be patient.
If Beijing doesn’t want to talk or meet, then send Yellen, Raimondo, and Blinken to Taipei, Tokyo, and Delhi. The US has plenty of things to work on, desperately pursuing Beijing is worse than a waste of time, it is counterproductive to strategic stability.
(NOTE: I can almost hear the gasps of ‘China experts’ who are outraged by this recommendation)
To give the Administration credit, I think they did particularly good job back in March 2021 in Anchorage, Alaska with the PRC.
Most people only remember the opening fireworks of that meeting, but forget the broader diplomatic set-piece moves the Biden team made before, during, and after Anchorage.
First off, the meeting was held in the United States but not in Washington, an important optic. Immediately preceding the meeting, Blinken and Sullivan spent time in Seoul and Tokyo consulting our closest allies. While the meeting was going on in Alaska, Secretary of Defense Austin was in Delhi meeting with the Indians. This was less than a year after Chinese troops attacked and killed Indian soldiers on Indian territory. With that visit, Secretary Austin began a series of negotiations that have led to closer military and intelligence ties between Washington and Delhi (see #61 below - U.S. Intel Helped India Rout China in 2022 Border Clash: Sources). Immediately after the Alaska meeting, Blinken and Sullivan went to Europe and persuaded the EU to announce joint sanctions with the US on the PRC for “serious human rights abuses” in Xinjiang.
While it was important who did participate in these talks, it was also critical who did NOT participate: Treasury, Commerce, and USTR were not at the table. The Administration correctly sent the message that our economic focus was on creating prosperity for ourselves and our allies.
We need more of this kind of ‘smart’ diplomacy and less of the ‘ardent suitor’ type.
___
As for the rest of the news this week, allegations of CCP political interference in Canada keeps piling up, making Prime Minister Trudeau and his government look complicit.
On Wednesday, the Canadian media outlet, Global News, broke the story that Han Dong, one of the 11 MPs at the center of the political interference controversy roiling Trudeau’s Liberal Party, had advised a senior PRC diplomat just before the 2021 national elections to delay freeing Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. The ‘Two Michaels’ were being held hostage by the PRC in retaliation for the arrest of the Huawei CFO.
Within hours of the story, Han Dong had resigned from the Liberal Party and made an impassioned speech in Parliament denying these accusations (though admitting he made the phone call) and that he had always demanded the immediate release of the ‘Two Michaels.’ This sent journalists back to comb through the MP’s speeches since he was elected to Parliament in 2019 and they found no remarks by him related to the ‘Two Michaels’ or a single call for their release.
On Thursday, as ByteDance’s head of TikTok was testifying to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the Globe and Mail broke the story that the Canadian intelligence service had provided a transcript of MP Han Dong’s conversation with the senior PRC diplomat to the Trudeau Government in 2021. At the time, the ‘Two Michaels’ had been held hostage for more than two years, but the Trudeau Government decided that there was no “actionable evidence.”
With revelations like this, I suspect the calls for a public inquiry into the actions of Trudeau’s government will grow even stronger.
Thanks for reading!
Matt
MUST READ
1. Liberal MP Han Dong secretly advised Chinese diplomat in 2021 to delay freeing Two Michaels
Sam Cooper, Global News Canada, March 22, 2023
Liberal MP Han Dong, who is at the centre of Chinese influence allegations, privately advised a senior Chinese diplomat in February 2021 that Beijing should hold off freeing Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, according to two separate national security sources. Both sources said Dong allegedly suggested to Han Tao, China’s consul general in Toronto, that if Beijing released the “Two Michaels,” whom China accused of espionage, the Opposition Conservatives would benefit.
2. Stop Fentanyl Shippers from Exploiting the U.S. Postal System
Paul Steidler, National Interest, March 19, 2023
In 2018, Congress came together on an overwhelming bicameral, bipartisan basis to enact a sensible, technologically proven, low-cost measure to remove fentanyl shipments from the international postal system.
Since then, the leadership of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), in two administrations, has done everything conceivable to blunder enforcement, thereby ensuring international drug cartels maintain reliable use of one of their proven shipping and distribution channels.
If the drug cartels had bribed U.S. officials, they could not have gotten better results for non-enforcement.
On October 24, 2018, President Donald Trump signed the Synthetics Trafficking Overdose Protection Act (STOP Act) requiring advanced electronic data (AED) on all incoming international packages that were to be delivered by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). Private carriers had been required to carry this electronic tracking information since 2002, shortly after the 9/11 attacks.
Drug cartels and fentanyl merchants openly advertised on the Internet their preference for using USPS for shipments. A January 2018 bipartisan report by the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Investigations Subcommittee documented this, as shipments via USPS were not required to have AED on inbound international packages. AED means packages can be better tracked and suspicious ones identified before they arrive in the United States and are seized.
But nearly one year after Congress passed the STOP Act, a Washington Post investigative story found the situation still had not been fixed.
The story’s lead said, “Chinese drug traffickers had some advice for American buyers of fentanyl: Let us ship to you by regular mail. It might be slower than FedEx or UPS, but the opioid is much more likely to reach its destination through the U.S. Postal Service.”
CBP’s failures continued, the major ones of which include the following:
Failing to issue regulations for STOP Act enforcement by October 24, 2019, as required by the law;
Failing to ensure that packages from China that entered the United States after January 1, 2020, for USPS delivery had AED, thereby allowing such packages to continue to be delivered;
Missing a similar deadline for packages from other countries entering the United States after January 1, 2021;
Issuing interim regulations on March 15, 2021, nearly two and a half years after the legislation passed, that are woefully insufficient.
CBP’s regulations allow packages to be delivered without AED. There is no systemic attempt to seize suspicious packages. Dozens of countries are exempt from providing AED, meaning shippers can easily re-route shipments to the United States via these exempt countries.
CBP has tried to posit that there is no longer a need for the STOP Act because fentanyl production has largely shifted to Mexico from China, while noting that its fentanyl seizures at ports of entry have risen significantly. And in May 2019, China’s government, in response to U.S. pressure, banned the production and sale of fentanyl.
Yet, fentanyl-related deaths have skyrocketed since 2018, making it clear that an “all of the above” enforcement regimen is imperative.
There is reason to believe that large amounts of fentanyl are still entering America from China via U.S. mail. A May 2022 U.S. Government Accountability Office report found that postal mail and vehicles were the top two ways illegal drugs enter the United States.
An in-depth November 17, 2020, National Public Radio story prepared by a China-based reporter found that “Chinese vendors have tapped into online networks to brazenly market fentanyl analogs and the precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl and ship them directly to customers in the U.S. and Europe as well as to Mexican cartels, according to an NPR investigation and research from the Center for Advanced Defense Studies.”
CBP and USPS should also rigorously monitor packages from Mexico, the hub of current production. I recently had five postal packages delivered from Mexico, in a timely manner, none with AED.
Fortunately, a bipartisan group in Congress is pushing for accountability from CBP. Among those demanding answers and better CBP practices are Senators Amy Klobuchar, Rick Scott, Ed Markey, and Maggie Hassan.
CBP owes these senators, and the American people, an immediate, rigorous enforcement program that will include public disclosure of seizure rates and regular public updates on their progress in cutting off this poison that kills 70,000 Americans annually.
3. Deny, Deflect, Deter: Countering China's Economic Coercion
Matthew Reynolds and Matthew Goodman, CSIS, March 21, 2023
As China has grown economically, so too has its propensity to engage in acts of economic coercion against both its neighbors and more distant countries. This report analyzes eight cases of Chinese economic coercion since 2010—against Japan, Norway, the Philippines, Mongolia, South Korea, Australia, Canada, and Lithuania—and reveals that the most salient characteristic of China’s economic coercion is that it simply is not very effective. While problematic, China’s economic coercion should be viewed with a sense of perspective; indeed, Beijing’s behavior provides an opportunity to advance U.S. interests in multiple ways.
This report proposes a counterstrategy based on the logic of deterrence by denial that has two mutually reinforcing components: preemptive “denial” policies that aim to harden vulnerable economies against Chinese economic coercion, and reactive “deflection” policies that aim to negate China’s coercion by providing targeted relief to accelerate market adjustments, minimizing the political and economic pressure China can impose on the target. The counterstrategy proposed here aims to deter Beijing from its disruptive behavior over time, while preserving the moral high ground for the United States.
4. VIDEO – Countering China's Economic Coercion - Report Launch
Ambassador Rahm Emanuel and Senator Todd Young, CSIS, March 22, 2023
5. Americans Encounter Hurdles to Studying in China Even as Covid Restrictions Ease
Stella Yifan Xie, Wall Street Journal, March 18, 2023
Strict pandemic restrictions helped push the number of American university students in China to its lowest level in more than two decades—382 students in the 2020-21 academic year. Now, with China reopening its borders, the question is whether they will come back.
During that academic year, the most recent for which data is available, the number of American citizens studying in China was down 97% from roughly 12,000 in 2018-19, and even further below the peak of nearly 15,000 a decade ago, according to data from the U.S. State Department and the Institute of International Education, a New York-based nonprofit.
COMMENT – There were 382 American students in the PRC for the 2020-2021 academic year.
6. Vanguard to exit China funds JV with Ant, close Shanghai office – sources
Selena Li, Reuters, March 21, 2023
U.S. fund giant Vanguard Group is shutting its main Shanghai office and exiting from a joint venture with Ant Group, five sources with knowledge of the matter said, moves that will end its six-year presence in the world's second largest economy.
A complete exit from China's 27 trillion yuan ($3.92 trillion) funds market would come about two years after the firm said it would not pursue setting up a fund management unit, a U-turn from previous ambitious expansionary plans in the market.
Ant said the JV and the fund advisory service "are operating as usual", while Vanguard did not reply immediately to a request for comment.
Vanguard, with $7.1 trillion in assets under management globally, owns a 49% stake in the Ant-controlled JV.
Ant has been notified about the planned withdrawal and is considering acquiring Vanguard's stake, the sources said, declining to be named because the conversations were private.
The planned exit contrasts with expansions in China by U.S. rivals BlackRock (BLK.N) and Fidelity in recent years. In addition, the bank asset management arms of JPMorgan (JPM.N) and Morgan Stanley (MS.N) each received approval to take full ownership of their existing China operations earlier this year.
Vanguard is moving to close its Shanghai office, a separate entity from the JV with its own product and technology teams, and to lay off the staff there, according to two of the sources.
7. Fidelity, Neuberger Berman latest foreign entrants in China’s US$3.7 trillion mutual-fund market
Iris Ouyang, South China Morning Post, March 6, 2023
Foreign financial institutions such as Fidelity International and Neuberger Berman have accelerated the launch of mutual funds and wholly-owned units in mainland China to tap its 26 trillion yuan (US$3.7 trillion) mutual-fund market, as Beijing vowed to further open its services industry during its annual “two sessions” parliamentary meetings.
Fidelity is set to launch its first mutual-fund product in China on April 3, becoming the third foreign asset manager to expand in China’s mutual-fund market, after winning approval from Beijing in December. BlackRock and Neuberger Berman won approvals for wholly-owned mutual-fund entities in August 2020 and November last year, respectively.
8. Longtime China investor Anatole to open ‘outpost’ in Singapore
Mercedes Ruehl and Kaye Wiggins, Financial Times, March 18, 2023
Hong Kong-based asset manager had significantly cut its exposure to China
Hong Kong-based asset manager Anatole is preparing to shift a key part of its business to Singapore, after telling investors it had significantly cut its exposure to China.
The firm, which made its name through outsized bets on China’s growth, is opening an office in the city-state and may move key functions and decision-making there, said three people familiar with the discussions.
Many Asia-based hedge fund managers were left nursing large losses following a years-long regulatory assault by Chinese president Xi Jinping on multiple sectors from technology to property.
Proximity to the mainland through a Hong Kong base has become less crucial for managers such as Anatole as they diversify into fast-growing south-east Asia, home to 655mn people and featuring Singapore as a regional financial hub.
Anatole may keep a smaller presence in Hong Kong, in part to try to avoid falling out of favour in China where it still has its largest exposure, said one of the people.
“The nervous system is likely going to be in Singapore,” said another person briefed on the negotiations, though they added that the decision had not been finalised and the situation could change. The company registered in Singapore in February, according to the city’s accounting authority records.
COMMENT – It is difficult to pick out the signal from the noise… clearly there is a lack of consensus across the financial services community about the future of the PRC economy and whether foreign firms can operate effectively under the jurisdiction of an ever-expanding Chinese Communist Party.
9. Why I blew the whistle on Chinese interference in Canada’s elections
Unnamed Canadian National Security Official, The Globe and Mail, March 17, 2023
A note from David Walmsley, Editor-in-Chief of The Globe and Mail:
Revelations from the author of this opinion piece formed the backbone of our news stories that there is foreign interference in our political system at all levels of government and across Canada. The facts in those stories, which are just part of our in-depth and years-long reporting on the issue, are uncontroverted.
However, the individual faces possible prosecution for revealing classified documents.
This is a rare moment in which we have granted confidentiality to an Opinion writer. We recognize conferring confidentiality demands a great degree of trust on the part of the reader. We believe that publishing this piece strikes a balance between providing readers with more insight into our work, and our responsibility to protect the individual’s identity, in the tradition of shielding sources when it is in the public interest, as set out by the Supreme Court of Canada in the 2010 ruling of Globe and Mail v. Canada.
The following opinion piece is written by a national security official.
When I joined the public service many years ago, I swore an oath.
Not to party or to person, but to my country, to its democratic institutions and to my fellow Canadians.
When I first became aware of the significance of the threat posed by outside interference to our democratic institutions, I worked – as have many unnamed and tireless colleagues – to equip our leaders with the knowledge and the tools needed to take action against it.
Months passed, and then years. The threat grew in urgency; serious action remained unforthcoming. I endeavored, alone and with others, to raise concerns about this threat directly to those in a position to hold our top officials to account. Regrettably, those individuals were unable to do so.
In the time that passed, another federal election had come and gone, the threat of interference had grown, and it had become increasingly clear that no serious action was being considered. Worse still, evidence of senior public officials ignoring interference was beginning to mount.
Despite these concerns, the decision to discuss this threat with Canadian journalists was not an easy one. In this line of work, the question of whether or not to blow the whistle rarely arrives unaccompanied by other ones. I asked myself: Can I do this while mitigating the risk to our country’s sources and methods? Will this mean the end of my career? Who will take care of my family if I go to prison?
For me, the answer to these questions was found in weighing them against the public interest.
I hold no personal complaint against our political leaders, against our national security community or against the Liberal Party. Indeed, I have voted for the latter in past elections and hope to be able to do so again one day. Neither was my decision taken out of any special animus toward the government of the People’s Republic of China, despite its driving involvement in these affairs.
Instead, I hoped that by providing the public with information I believe to be in the interest of all Canadians, we as a country would begin a much deeper conversation about what it is that we expect of our government. I hoped that we could launch a conversation about how to improve transparency, how to enhance accountability, how to protect all members of our society against external threats, and ultimately, about how we continue to pursue a system of governance that best serves all of its citizens.
While I still believe that conversation to be necessary, it has unfortunately become marked by ugliness and division.
So let me be clear: as troubling as the revelations we have seen are, I do not believe that foreign interference dictated the present composition of our federal government. Nor do I believe that any of our elected leaders is a traitor to our country. Nonetheless, the growing impact of foreign interference on our ability to enjoy a free and fair political process is undeniable.
Will these revelations give some Canadians cause to question the integrity of our democratic institutions and processes? Yes, they well might. But preserving the alternative – that Canadians remain unaware of the risks to those institutions – would be to deprive them of the ability to participate in our democratic processes with meaningful agency. Moreover, it would be to brush aside the experiences of many Canadian members of diaspora communities who have long been unable to express their political voices freely and unfettered by the threat of foreign intervention or reprisal. Indeed, I urge you to listen to those courageous Canadians who are willing and able to share their experiences in this regard.
With that said, we must all recognize that this is not a partisan issue. Nor is this a China issue. Your fellow progressive Canadians, your fellow conservative Canadians, and your fellow Chinese Canadians are all just that: Canadians. In having this conversation, we must resist the reflex to reduce the challenge that faces us to one of us versus them. We must recognize that protecting our civic values should not, need not and cannot come at the cost of abandoning our commitment to diversity and multiculturalism. We must come together as a national community and ask ourselves how we can do better – this time, the next time, and all the times that follow.
On the question of what happens next for me, I have little to say but this: if and when the time comes, I will take my lumps for my part in this. I will do so without resentment or regret, knowing that while what I have done may be unlawful, I cannot say that it was wrong.
I say this because I was raised to believe that integrity is the act of weighing your actions against your principles, not against what is convenient or expedient. And here my principles remain firmly tied to those words in my oath: I will serve my country, I will serve the democratic institutions on which it is founded and I will most certainly serve my fellow Canadians.
I am not the first in our public service to have grappled with such an unenviable ethical dilemma in recent years. Not so long ago, our former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould faced one that was even more acute, given what she stood to lose.
I worry, however, that we may be running short on individuals willing and able to risk the consequences of standing by their principles. So to my fellow Canadians: If you can, please work together to ensure that we are among the last public servants that will ever feel compelled to take that risk.
COMMENT – This opinion piece is worth reading in full. It is from the Canadian national security official who blew the whistle on PRC election interference in the 2019 and 2021 Canadian elections.
Ken Wilcox, The Wire China, March 19, 2023
Silicon Valley Bank's former CEO reflects on the bank's challenges in China.
In April 2011, I had just turned 63 and was supposed to retire after a 30-year career at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), the final decade of which was spent as CEO. Somehow, things turned out a little differently.
Rather than pursue hobbies or get involved with nonprofits, my wife and I moved to China. SVB’s Board had asked me to found a brand-new bank: the Shanghai Pudong Development Silicon Valley Bank (SPD SVB), a joint venture between SVB and the state-owned Shanghai Pudong Development Bank.
The board had committed $100 million to establishing SVB’s operations in China, and I was filled with goodwill and optimism about the endeavor.
Despite SVB’s recent failure, I remain committed to its original vision and take pride in the work the bank did to fund innovation. By taking its unique model to China in 2011 and deploying it to finance Chinese start-ups, I thought of myself as not only expanding the bank — my professional home — but also as supporting global innovation.
By the time I returned to the U.S. four years later, however, I felt supremely cynical about U.S. business interests in China as well as personally exploited.
While most of the news coverage at the moment will, rightly, focus on SVB’s recent missteps, I believe it is also worth sharing and studying the bank’s decades-long challenges in China — not only because they predated the current geopolitical tensions, thus representing a more optimistic time, but also because countless Westerners have had similarly frustrating experiences to mine, but very few are willing to admit it.
Sometimes they’re afraid of disappointing their boards and engendering retaliation from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). If they’re critical, they worry that the CCP will find some way of punishing the company they went there to build (assuming it still exists). Possibly, their egos won’t let them admit that they’ve been taken for a ride. And perhaps, in some cases, China is still milking them for knowledge, and for that reason treats them well. Their time will come.
COMMENT – I’m looking forward to reading Ken Wilcox’s new book One Bed Two Dreams: When Western Companies Fail in China.
AUTHORITARIANISM
11. Chinese Pressure Tactics Against Other Countries Largely Ineffective, Study Finds
Lingling Wei, Wall Street Journal, March 21, 2023
Chinese trade restrictions and other punitive measures against countries seen as offending its interests have a poor record of getting Beijing the outcome it wants, a new study finds.
In some cases, according to the study, published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Tuesday, the strategy has produced the opposite of what China has sought by driving countries closer to the U.S., the biggest threat seen by the Chinese leadership to its national interests.
12. W.H.O. Accuses China of Hiding Data That May Link Covid’s Origins to Animals
Benjamin Mueller, New York Times, March 17, 2023
Genetic research from China suggests to some experts that the coronavirus may have sprung from a seafood market in Wuhan. Now the data are missing from a scientific database.
The World Health Organization rebuked Chinese officials on Friday for withholding research that may link Covid’s origin to wild animals, asking why the data had not been made available three years ago and why it is now missing.
Before the Chinese data disappeared, an international team of virus experts downloaded and began analyzing the research, which appeared online in January. They say it supports the idea that the pandemic could have begun when illegally traded raccoon dogs infected humans at a Wuhan seafood market.
But the gene sequences were removed from a scientific database once the experts offered to collaborate on the analysis with their Chinese counterparts.
“These data could have — and should have — been shared three years ago,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O.’s director general, said. The missing evidence now “needs to be shared with the international community immediately,” he said.
13. Xi and Putin Bind China and Russia’s Economies Further, Despite War in Ukraine
Valerie Hopkins and Chris Buckley, New York Times, March 21, 2023
On the second day of the Chinese leader’s state visit in Moscow, Xi Jinping and Vladimir V. Putin declared an enduring economic partnership, in an effort to insulate their countries from punitive Western measures.
Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China, March 21, 2023
The PRC and Russia recommit to their comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation, in particular: “provide resolute mutual support in protecting each other's fundamental interests, primarily sovereignty, territorial integrity, security and development.”
Xi and Putin in the Kremlin last week.
15. No path to peace: Five key takeaways from Xi and Putin’s talks in Moscow
Simone McCarthy, CNN, March 22, 2023
Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin have made a sweeping affirmation of their alignment across a host of issues – and shared mistrust of the United States – in a lengthy statement following talks between the two leaders in Moscow this week.
Their meeting, which took place under the shadow of Russia’s onslaught in Ukraine, left no question about Beijing’s commitment to developing its rapport with Moscow, despite Putin’s growing isolation on the global stage as its devastating war continues into its second year.
16. Xi Jinping praises Vladimir Putin’s ‘strong leadership’ in Kremlin talks
Max Seddon, Financial Times, March 20, 2023
17. Why Xi Jinping is still Vladimir Putin’s best friend
Stuart Lau, Politico, March 20, 2023
As he jets off for a state visit to Moscow this week, China’s President Xi Jinping is doing so in defiance of massive international pressure. Vladimir Putin, the man Xi once called his “best, most intimate friend,” has just become the world’s most wanted alleged war criminal.
The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin on March 17 for his alleged role in illegally transferring Ukrainian civilians into Russian territories. But that isn’t deterring Xi, who broke Communist Party norms and formally secured a third term as Chinese leader this month.
18. Russia hits Ukraine with missiles, drones as 'dear friend' Xi departs
Dan Peleschuk and Sergiy Chalyi, Reuters, March 22, 2023
Russia blasted an apartment block in Ukraine with missiles on Wednesday and swarmed cities with drone attacks overnight, in a display of force as President Vladimir Putin bid farewell to his visiting "dear friend" and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.
Firefighters battled a blaze in two adjacent tall residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia, where officials said at least one person had been killed and 33 wounded by a twin Russian missile strike.
19. AUDIO – Bear backed: Xi heads to Moscow
The Intelligence Podcast from the Economist, March 20, 2023
COMMENT – Xi Jinping’s worst nightmare is for Putin to fail in his war in Ukraine and for there to be some sort of ‘color revolution’ in Moscow.
20. In a Brother Act with Putin, Xi Reveals China’s Fear of Containment
Chris Buckley, New York Times, March 22, 2023
Instead of focusing on a solution to the war in Ukraine, the Chinese leader’s visit to Moscow reinforced China and Russia’s shared opposition to American dominance.
China’s leader, Xi Jinping, flew into Moscow this week cast by Beijing as its emissary for peace in Ukraine. His summit with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, however, demonstrated that his priority remains shoring up ties with Moscow to gird against what he sees as a long campaign by the United States to hobble China’s ascent.
Talk of Ukraine was overshadowed by Mr. Xi’s vow of ironclad solidarity with Russia as a political, diplomatic, economic and military partner: two superpowers aligned in countering American dominance and a Western-led world order. The summit showed Mr. Xi’s intention to entrench Beijing’s tilt toward Moscow against what he recently called an effort by the United States at the full-fledged “containment” of China.
Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin used the pomp of the three-day state visit that ended on Wednesday to signal to their publics and to Western capitals that the bond between their two countries remained robust and, in their eyes, indispensable, 13 months after Mr. Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine. They laid out their vision for the world in a nine-point joint statement that covered everything from Taiwan to climate change and relations with Mongolia, often depicting the United States as the obstacle to a better, fairer world.
21. China Has a New Vision for Itself: Global Power
Jonathan Cheng, Wall Street Journal, March 22, 2023
China now sees itself as a global power—and it is starting to act like one.
Long reluctant to inject itself into conflicts far from its shores, Beijing is showing a new assertiveness as Xi Jinping begins his third term as the country’s head of state, positioning China to draw like-minded countries to its side and to have a greater say on global matters.
The new approach comes as China emerges from three years of “zero-Covid” isolation to a far more unfriendly West, and feels it has the military and economic heft to start shaping the world more to its interests.
22. 'Winnie the Pooh' horror film cancelled in Hong Kong
Jessie Pang and Farah Master, Reuters, March 21, 2023
COMMENT – For those of you who are interested, here is the trailer for Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey… I can see why the Party is so scared.
23. Many Investors Are Skeptical of Jumping in on China’s Highly Touted Recovery
Jack Pitcher, Wall Street Journal, March 18, 2023
Some look for ways to bet on China’s reopening without investing directly in Chinese stocks.
As the country’s long-awaited reopening unleashes three years of pent-up consumer demand, analysts see opportunities to profit from a growth wave. Early data point toward a fast rebound in traveling, eating out and “revenge spending” by Chinese consumers after years of severe restrictions.
The MSCI China Index, which tracks Chinese companies listed in the U.S., Hong Kong and the mainland, has rallied about 30% since the end of October when it became clear the country was ending its zero-Covid policy. The S&P 500 has edged up 1.2% over the same period.
24. China’s M&A Star Told His Employees to Be Bold—Then He Disappeared
Jing Yang and Rebecca Feng, Wall Street Journal, March 18, 2023
Beijing’s detention of tech rainmaker Fan Bao rattles an industry that thought the crackdown was over.
In mid-January, star Chinese investment banker Fan Bao, architect of the deals that created some of China’s most dominant technology companies, appeared at his bank’s annual party in Beijing. He brought along his children, who played instruments and performed a rendition of the Coldplay hit “Yellow.” He exhorted the hundreds of staffers in attendance to “Go Forward Boldly.”
For the past month, the 52-year-old banker—who set out to build the JPMorgan of China and successfully straddled the divide between China and the West—has been held incommunicado in a detention system run by the Communist Party’s anticorruption agency.
He vanished just as hopes were building in China’s battered technology sector that a long-running government crackdown was ending. Former economic czar Liu He had also recently told the elite audience at Davos that China was open to business again. But the seizure of Mr. Bao wiped out that goodwill and sent shivers through China’s business and finance community.
25. Do as I Say, Not as I Do: Foreign Supply of Repressive Equipment to Hong Kong
Center for Advanced Defense Studies, March 16, 2023
Despite international attention given to the excessive force used against pro-democracy protesters, and in the face of public pledges and government policy to the contrary, Western companies have continued to provide the Hong Kong Police Force and the Government Flying Service with equipment, technology, and training that may aid in the repression of Hong Kong residents.
For the past eight years, the Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF) has used excessive force against pro-democracy protesters. According to Amnesty International, in 2019, police officers beat, pepper sprayed, tear-gassed, and shot protesters with rubber bullets and live ammunition. International human rights organizations also documented unlawful arrests and other instances of police misconduct. The police used similar tactics in 2014 during the Umbrella Movement as protesters used umbrellas to shield themselves from police officers in riot gear. Despite these abuses, foreign companies continued to supply Hong Kong security forces with equipment and services that could be used to repress Hong Kong citizens.
This repression has continued since the 2020 passage of the National Security Law (NSL) in Hong Kong, which increased the Chinese government’s involvement in and oversight over Hong Kong’s internal security matters. The law criminalizes vaguely-defined acts of secession, subversion, terrorism, or collusion with foreign or external forces. Since its passage, over 1,300 journalists, pro-democracy politicians, activists, and other individuals are currently in prison for allegedly violating the law.
In response to the adoption of the NSL, in June 2020 the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Department of Commerce imposed export restrictions on dual-use technology and equipment destined for Hong Kong. Further, the Bureau of Industry and Security of the U.S. Department of Commerce added the Government Flying Service to the Military End-User List in 2021 after one of the Government Flying Service’s Canadian-made aircraft, a Bombardier Challenger 605, allegedly tracked a boat of fugitive activists escaping from Hong Kong to Taiwan and enabled their arrest in Chinese waters.1 This action bars the Government Flying Service from buying certain U.S. goods and technologies and subjects it to additional license requirements.
The European Union and United Kingdom also imposed export restrictions on dual-use equipment and technologies destined for Hong Kong following the passage of the NSL. Despite these export restrictions, Western companies are still providing dual-use equipment and technologies to the HKPF and Government Flying Service.
26. China’s New Crackdown Targets “Self-Media”
Zhou Kexin, Bitter Winter, March 22, 2023
As recent scandals and the COVID protests demonstrated, allowing non-Party-approved news to be posted on social media is something the regime cannot tolerate.
ENVIRONMENTAL HARMS
27. China permits two new coal power plants per week in 2022
Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, February 27, 2023
Coal power plant permitting, construction starts and new project announcements accelerated dramatically in China in 2022, with new permits reaching the highest level since 2015. The coal power capacity starting construction in China was six times as large as that in all of the rest of the world combined.
50 GW of coal power capacity started construction in China in 2022, a more than 50% increase from 2021. Many of these projects had their permits fast-tracked and moved to construction in a matter of months. A total of 106 GW of new coal power projects were permitted, the equivalent of two large coal power plants per week 1.
The amount of capacity permitted more than quadrupled from 23 GW in 2021. Of the projects permitted in 2022, 60 GW were not under construction in January 2023, but are likely to start construction soon, indicating even more construction starts in 2023. In total, 86 GW of new coal power projects were initiated, more than doubling from 40 GW in 2021.
28. China coal power plant approvals surge, challenging climate pledges
David Fogarty, The Straits Times, February 27, 2023
The new capacity, if it was all built, would equate to about 106 power plants of 1GW each, the average size of a coal plant.
Coal power capacity starting construction in 2022 totalled 50GW. This was six times as much as that for the rest of the world combined and was also a more than 50 per cent increase from 2021, said the report.
29. AUDIO – China is building six times more new coal plants than other countries, report finds
Julia Simon, NPR, March 2, 2023
30. World drives forward on No New Coal but China takes a detour
Oyku Senlen, Leo Roberts, et al, E3G, March 14, 2023
China now accounts for 72% of global pre-construction capacity of coal fired power plants, up from 66% in July 2022. The next five countries (India, Turkey, Indonesia, Laos and Mongolia) account for 18% combined with the remaining 10% spread across 27 countries.
Yujie Xue, South China Morning post, March 22, 2023
The United Nations’ call for a “quantum leap” on climate action has heightened concern about China’s coal reliance among climate analysts, as the UN moves the global deadline for net-zero emissions forward by a decade to 2050 – 10 years ahead of China’s 2060 carbon-neutral goal.
China’s reluctance to ditch coal due to energy-security concerns, as evidenced by Beijing’s recent greenlighting of more coal-fired power plants, will make the country’s decarbonisation progress even harder, climate experts said.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s leading climate-science body, on Monday released a landmark report summarising the panel’s findings in the past five years and giving a comprehensive assessment of how the global climate crisis is unfolding.
“The climate time-bomb is ticking,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a statement to mark the launch of the IPCC report on Monday. “Humanity is on thin ice – and that ice is melting fast.”
COMMENT – Given the alarm that UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has been raising (quote: “Humanity is on thin ice — and that ice is melting fast,” and “Our world needs climate action on all fronts — everything, everywhere, all at once.”), it is disappointing that the UN’s leader cannot bring himself to call out the only country that is making massive investments to INCREASE their coal-fired power plants.
In the past year, the PRC has announced construction of additional coal-fired power plants in excess of the entire current capacity of the United States… that is on top of an existing capacity that is four times the size of the United States capacity. Which means that even if the US shuttered every existing coal-fired power plant tomorrow, the PRC’s proposed addition from just the last year would completely offset that drop in carbon emissions.
While excessive carbon emissions have global consequences, we really have a China emissions problem.
If there’s anything we’ve learned over the past decade dealing with Xi Jinping: quiet, behind the scenes diplomacy with the Chinese leader does not work.
32. Chinese coal boom a ‘direct threat’ to 1.5C goal, analysts warn
Matteo Civillini and Alok Gupta, Climate Home News, March 14, 2023
33. Zimbabwe's new 300 MW coal-fired plant starts feeding into grid
Nyasha Chingono, Reuters, March 21, 2023
Zimbabwe's new 300 megawatt (MW) coal-fired power generating unit started feeding electricity into the national grid late on Monday, the state power utility said, as it moves to ease extended outages that have impacted businesses and households.
The southern African country is expanding its 920 MW Hwange thermal power station by adding two 300 MW units at a cost of $1.4 billion, with 85% of the funding coming from China.
The first of the two units built by Chinas Sinohydro was successfully synchronised into the national grid late Monday, the Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) said.
COMMENT – This 300 MW coal-fired power plant was financed and built by Chinese State-owned Enterprises… the current ESG framework touted by financial services industry leaders like BlackRock does absolutely nothing to prevent these projects from being built.
34. Coal returns to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor
Zofeen Ebraham, The Hindu, March 19, 2023
Progress towards the construction of a China-funded coal power plant in Gwadar raises questions about the climate pledges of both China and Pakistan.
News that the Pakistan government plans to secure financing and start construction on a long-stalled 300 megawatt coal-fired power plant in the port city of Gwadar has triggered a debate on the direction of the country’s energy sector. Set to be built and funded by Chinese state-owned entities, recent developments have also raised fresh questions about China’s pledge – made at the UN General Assembly in 2021 – not to build any new coal power plants overseas.
35. Can the Growing Trans-Pacific Wildlife Trade Be Stopped?
Sharon Guynup, New Security Beat, March 3, 2023
Today’s celebration of World Wildlife Day is a perfect time to focus greater attention on the rapidly growing Latin America-to-Asia wildlife trade. It now has reached crisis proportions, with both illegal and legal shipments rising in tandem with China’s economic investment in the region.
Experts link this mushrooming trans-Pacific animal trade to large-scale development projects by Chinese companies. Over the past 15 years, two state-owned Chinese banks have loaned more than $140 billion for infrastructure, road, railway and mining projects in Latin America.
It is a pattern that the world has seen before. The nonprofit Wildlife Conservation Society warns that “similar conditions were present less than two decades ago in Africa prior to the Asian-driven declines in Africa’s megafauna that we see today.” As one of the world’s most biodiverse regions, Latin America has become an obvious next target.
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE AND COERCION
36. “Skepticism about the U.S.” Spreading in Taiwan
Ogasawara Yoshiyuki, Japan Foreign Policy Forum, March 14, 2023
Taiwan’s next presidential election in 2024 will not only set Taiwan’s direction, but also have a major impact on the future of the U.S.-China conflict and the stability of East Asia. It is also a matter of great concern to Japan. In Taiwan, “skepticism,” which questions the intentions and actions of the United States, is gradually spreading. The content of “skepticism about the U.S.” differs depending on the commentator, but the common feature is that “relying on the United States will lead to a disastrous end for Taiwan.” Some say, “If we rely on the U.S., the U.S. will not act, and Taiwan will be abandoned by the U.S. in the end,” while others say, “If we do as the U.S. says, Taiwan will be used as a pawn to suppress China. In the end, there will be a war in Taiwan and that will be the end.”
This “skepticism” shares common logic with China’s criticism of the United States. In Taiwan, Kuomintang (KMT, Chinese Nationalist Party)-affiliated politicians, critics, and scholars advocate “skepticism.” The “skepticism” itself is not a new argument. As has been said before, the mainstream public opinion in Taiwanese society is “pro-American,” so “skepticism” did not spread. However, since the end of 2022, the idea of “skepticism” has been increasingly featured in the Taiwanese media.
37. Claims of Chinese Election Meddling Put Trudeau on Defensive
Ian Austen, New York Times, March 18, 2023
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada is battling critics and leaked intelligence reports that opponents say show he ignored warnings of Chinese interference in past elections.
The leaked intelligence reports have set off a political firestorm. They describe plans by the government of China and its diplomats in Canada to ensure that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party took power in the last two elections, raising troubling questions about the integrity of Canada’s democracy.
But as two prominent Canadian news organizations have published a series of leaks over the past month, Mr. Trudeau has refused calls to launch a public inquiry into the matter, angering political opponents and leading to accusations that he is covering up foreign attempts to undermine his country’s elections.
38. Canada PM Trudeau's top aide to testify in parliament on Chinese election meddling
Ismail Shakil, Reuters, March 21, 2023
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau bowed to pressure from the opposition and agreed to allow his top aide to testify before a parliamentary committee probing alleged Chinese election interference, his office said on Tuesday.
39. China protests 'vile' Taiwan visit by German minister
Reuters, March 21, 2023
Beijing expressed its anger at a visit by Germany's education minister to Taiwan on Tuesday, describing it as "vile", while a source at Berlin's foreign office responded by saying the trip did not deviate from Germany's "one China" policy.
China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has ramped up military, political and economic pressure to assert those claims. The politically sensitive visit is taking place as Berlin is reviewing its previously close ties with China.
40. Taiwan visit China called 'vile' is a 'normal work trip', German minister says
Fabian Hamacher, Reuters, March 22, 2023
Germany's education minister said on Wednesday that she was on a "normal work trip" to Taiwan to seek collaboration with partners that share similar challenges, a visit China has condemned as "vile".
China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has ramped up military, political and economic pressure to assert that claim.
The politically sensitive visit of Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger is taking place as Germany is reviewing its previously close ties with China.
HUMAN RIGHTS AND RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
41. Hong Kong police detain key democrat on subversion charge
Tyrone Siu and James Pomfret, Reuters, March 21, 2023
Hong Kong police on Tuesday arrested a veteran pro-democracy politician who was granted bail last August for medical treatment after spending more than a year in detention on a subversion charge.
Albert Ho, 71, once led the city's largest opposition group, the Democratic Party, and is a lawyer who runs his own law firm.
Police handcuffed Ho and took him away from his home in a vehicle, a Reuters witness said.
The national security department of the police force has arrested a 71-year-old man for perverting the course of public justice, police said in a statement.
Ho's law firm could not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Ho has been charged with inciting subversion under a national security law that China imposed on the former British colony in 2020. He has pleaded not guilty.
He was granted bail last August, with media reporting at the time that he needed medical treatment for lung cancer.
The judge who granted him bail told him that if he committed any acts endangering national security, "his bail will be revoked and he won't be able to receive any kind of private medical care".
Earlier this month, police arrested a veteran union leader, Elizabeth Tang, after she visited her pro-democracy activist husband in a high security prison. She was charged with collusion with foreign forces and granted bail.
Ho's brother, Frederick Ho, was also arrested in connection with that case.
Albert Ho stands accused with two others, Lee Cheuk-yan, 66, and Chow Hang-tung, 38, of inciting subversion of state power under a China-imposed national security law, given their leadership roles in a now disbanded group called the "Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China".
The Asian financial hub returned to Chinese rule in 1997 under a "one country, two systems" formula granting it a high degree of autonomy but some Western countries say China is undermining those freedoms with the 2020 national security law.
Chinese and Hong Kong officials deny that and say foreign interference is endangering the financial hub's stability and prosperity.
COMMENT – Participating in Hong Kong’s political system as a part of an opposition party now qualifies as “subversion” and results in imprisonment.
Ji Siqi, South China Morning Post, March 21, 2023
Exports from the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region to the US dropped by almost 90 per cent last month, year on year, to US$497,440. Apparel, which was once the region’s top export to the US, disappeared in February, eight months after the Uygur Forced Labour Prevention Act came into effect
43. Why Chairman Mao’s victims are denied justice
The Economist, March 16, 2023
For any regime bent on forgetting past horrors, the last surviving victims are a troublesome group. As they grow old, those who suffered or witnessed acts of political violence become harder to cow into silence. China’s Communist Party faces such a moment. Even the youngest participants in the Cultural Revolution will be turning 70 soon. While there is time, some survivors are speaking out about that deadly decade of purges and bloodletting, unleashed in 1966 by Chairman Mao Zedong as a way to outflank critics within the party establishment. Unfortunately for such survivors, the collective interests of the ruling party and thus the nation, as defined by the supreme leader, President Xi Jinping, leave little room for individual pangs of conscience.
School textbooks offer only terse accounts of the 1960s and 1970s, declaring that Mao’s mistakes are outweighed by his achievements. Mr Xi denounces “hostile forces” at home and abroad for what he calls “historical nihilism”. By that he means dwelling on dark episodes from the past to shake the public’s faith in the party’s leadership. For some older Chinese, calls to forget are appealing. For others who suffered in the Mao era, party-ordained amnesia is cruel: a life sentence of pain without parole.
INDUSTRIAL POLICIES AND ECONOMIC ESPIONAGE
44. Rare Earths Supply Chains and Confrontation with China
Ionut Popescu, Dan Negrea, and James Jay Carafano, National Interest, March 21, 2023
Beijing’s industrial policy essentially pushed Western companies out of the rare earth mining and processing business. It's time to fight back.
45. AUDIO – US Ambassador Peter Pham on minerals shortage for clean energy tech
Markham Hislop and Ambassador J. Peter Pham, Energi Talks, March 15, 2023
46. China gives chipmakers new powers to guide industry recovery
Qianer Liu, Financial Times, March 20, 2023
China is giving a handful of its most successful chip companies easier access to subsidies and more control over state-backed research, as tightening US controls on access to advanced technology force a major rethink in Beijing’s approach to supporting the sector.
The nurturing of closer co-operation with a select group of companies comes after the government shook up its tech strategy this month with the creation of a new Communist party science commission and a reinvigorated Ministry of Science and Technology.
47. Joe Biden’s Push to Counter China Steers EV Investments to Canada
Vipal Monga, Wall Street Journal, March 22, 2023
Volkswagen Group, Brazilian miner Vale and others are investing billions of dollars in the country’s electric-vehicle and mining sectors.
48. Biden Stunts Growth in China for Chipmakers Getting US Funds
Debby Wu, Bloomberg, March 21, 2023
The Biden administration unveiled tight restrictions on new operations in China by chipmakers that get federal funds to build in the US, potentially hampering efforts to expand in the world’s largest semiconductor arena.
The $50 billion CHIPS and Science Act will now bar firms that win grants from expanding output by 5% for advanced chips and 10% for older technology. The Commerce Department also outlined other measures including a $100,000 spending cap on investments in advanced capacity in China.
49. Europe Moves to Revive Mining to Cut Reliance on China
Eric Sylvers, Wall Street Journal, March 18, 2023
Race for metals and minerals amid growing battery demand spurs innovation and erodes European resistance to local production.
CYBER AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
50. China and 5G Technology, a Weapon for Dictatorships in Latin America
Julieta Pelcastre, Dialogo Americas, March 17, 2023
In China, the government maintains control over the internet and all information and communication technology products and services provided by Chinese companies. According to Argentina-based news site TeleSemana, China has been using the technology of Huawei, a company closely linked to the Chinese government, to control and monitor the population.
In Latin America, Huawei is further developing its 5G networks. The concern, Juan Pablo Salazar, founding partner of Colombian law firm CyberLaw, told Diálogo on February 8, is that some of this technology could be used to violate the rights of people in countries that do not respect democracy.
“Telecommunications infrastructure is always a disputed area and it creates certain safeguards for states to develop self-protection mechanisms in terms of security, but also that can be used against freedom of expression, freedom of communication, and people’s rights,” Salazar said.
51. TikTok hits 150 mln U.S. monthly users, up from 100 million in 2020
David Shepardson, Reuters, March 20, 2023
52. India Banned TikTok In 2020. TikTok Still Has Access to Years of Indians’ Data
Alexandra S. Levine, Forbes, March 21, 2023
53. TikTok cannot be considered a private company, says Australian report
Simon Sharwood, The Register, March 19, 2023
ByteDance, the Chinese developer of TikTok, "can no longer be accurately described as a private enterprise" and is instead intertwined with China's government, according to a report [PDF] submitted to Australia's Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media.
The report, by a quartet of researchers, was hailed as "the most comprehensive exploration yet of the CCP's ties to TikTok" by Brendan Carr, commissioner of the United States' Federal Communications Commission. India's IT minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar retweeted Carr's remarks.
The report alleges that China's government noticed as Douyin – the Chinese version of TikTok – boomed. Beijing then commenced a campaign employing its "legal and extra-legal mechanisms for influencing, coercing and controlling China's nominally privately-owned technology companies."
ByteDance has since become a publisher of state propaganda and built surveillance and analytics capabilities that make both Douyin and TikTok a tool China could use to profile individuals. In the words of the report's authors, this leaves ByteDance as "a 'hybrid' state-private entity."
The report also suggests Oracle's hosting of TikTok outside China does not reduce China's capacity to exercise control over TikTok. The short video app is renting bare metal servers and controls all aspects of their operation.
54. TikTok, ByteDance, and their ties to the Chinese Communist Party
Rachel Lee, Prudence Luttrell, Matthew Johnson, and John Garnaut, March 14, 2023
COMMENT – This is a 22 MB pdf submitted to the Australian Senate’s Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media.
55. TikTok CEO: App has never shared US data with Chinese government
David Shepardson, Reuters, March 21, 2023
TikTok's chief executive will tell lawmakers the Chinese-owned short video app with more than 150 million American users has never, and would never, share U.S. user data with the Chinese government amid growing U.S. national security concerns.
"TikTok has never shared, or received a request to share, U.S. user data with the Chinese government. Nor would TikTok honor such a request if one were ever made," CEO Shou Zi Chew will testify on Thursday, according to written testimony posted on Tuesday by the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee.
He added that TikTok's parent company ByteDance is not owned or controlled by any government or state entity. "Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country," Chew will say to the committee.
COMMENT – This is classic of crisis management communications, answer the question you want people to ask. In this case the questions that TikTok’s CEO wants to answer under oath are: “has TikTok shared US data with the Chinese Government?” and “is ByteDance an agent of the Chinese Goverenment?” To which he can answer both with: no.
But of course, these aren’t the right questions because TikTok is a wholly-owned and controlled subsidiary of the Beijing-based ByteDance. In fact, the TikTok CEO (Shou Zi Chew) is just an employee of ByteDance. Hired as ByteDance’s CFO in March 2021, Chew was appointed as TikTok’s “CEO” by ByteDance executives in May 2021. And ByteDance does not need to be an “agent” (whatever that imprecise word means) to be compelled under PRC’s National Intelligence Law, the Counterespionage Law, and the Cybersecurity Law, to grant PRC intelligence officials full access to restricted facilities, examine private records and gain access and requisition communications equipment owned by company.
According to Murray Scot Tanner’s analysis of the Intelligence Law, it also:
“obliges individuals, organizations, and institutions to assist Public Security and State Security officials in carrying out a wide array of “intelligence” work. Article Seven stipulates that “any organization or citizen shall support, assist, and cooperate with state intelligence work according to law.” Article 14, in turn, grants intelligence agencies authority to insist on this support: “state intelligence work organs, when legally carrying forth intelligence work, may demand that concerned organs, organizations, or citizens provide needed support, assistance, and cooperation.” Organizations and citizens must also protect the secrecy of “any state intelligence work secrets of which they are aware.””
Since ByteDance resides within the jurisdiction of the Chinese state, it is required to obey these laws. Privacy policies and internal ByteDance and TikTok guidelines do not supersede these laws, therefore they cannot be held up as effective protections. Chew may be entirely sincere when he says that he would never “honor such a request if one were ever made,” but he isn’t the only one who can grant access. This was revealed in December 2022 when it went public that ByteDance engineers in the PRC accessed TikTok data of US journalists to track down their sources.
The correct questions are: “has ByteDance shared US data with the Chinese Government?” and “under Chinese law, can ByteDance refuse a request by the Chinese Government to turn over US data?”
56. U.S. State-Government Websites Use TikTok Trackers, Review Finds
Byron Tau and Dustin Volz, Wall Street Journal, March 21, 2023
More than two dozen state governments have placed web-tracking code made by TikTok parent ByteDance Ltd. on official websites, according to a new report from a cybersecurity company, illustrating the difficulties U.S. regulators face in curtailing data-collection efforts by the popular Chinese-owned app.
A review of the websites of more than 3,500 companies, organizations and government entities by the Toronto-based company Feroot Security found that so-called tracking pixels from the TikTok parent company were present in 30 U.S. state-government websites across 27 states, including some where the app has been banned from state networks and devices. Feroot collected the data in January and February of this year.
The presence of that code means that U.S. state governments around the country are inadvertently participating in a data-collection effort for a foreign-owned company, one that senior Biden administration officials and lawmakers of both parties have said could be harmful to U.S. national security and the privacy of Americans.
Administrators who manage government websites use such pixels to help measure the effectiveness of advertising they have purchased on TikTok. It helps government agencies determine how many people saw an ad on the social-media app and took some action—such as visiting a website or signing up for a service. The pixels’ proliferation offers another vector for data collection beyond TikTok’s popular mobile app, which is increasingly under fire in Washington as a possible way for the Chinese government to collect data on Americans.
57. Google suspends Chinese shopping app Pinduoduo over malware
Nectar Gan, Yong Xiong, and Juliana Liu, CNN, March 21, 2023
58. Wave of Stealthy China Cyberattacks Hits U.S., Private Networks, Google Says
Robert McMillan and Dustin Volz, Wall Street Journal, March 16, 2023
State-sponsored hackers from China have developed techniques that evade common cybersecurity tools and enable them to burrow into government and business networks and spy on victims for years without detection, researchers with Alphabet Inc.’s Google found.
Over the past year, analysts at Google’s Mandiant division have discovered hacks of systems that aren’t typically the targets of cyber espionage. Instead of infiltrating systems behind the corporate firewall, they are compromising devices on the edge of the network—sometimes firewalls themselves—and targeting software built by companies such as VMware Inc. or Citrix Systems Inc. These products run on computers that don’t typically include antivirus or endpoint detection software.
The attacks routinely exploit previously undiscovered flaws and represent a new level of ingenuity and sophistication from China, said Charles Carmakal, Mandiant’s chief technology officer. Researchers have linked the activity to a suspected China-nexus hacking group because of the profile of victims, including some who have been hit repeatedly, the high degree of novel tradecraft and sophistication observed and level of resources required, and the identification of obscure malware code only known to have been used by China-based threat actors in the past, among other reasons.
China has routinely denied hacking into businesses or governments in other countries and accused the U.S. and its allies of the practice. The Chinese Embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
With the exception of a widespread 2021 attack on servers running Microsoft’s Exchange email software that was linked to China, China’s attacks have been precisely aimed, often hitting only a handful of high-value government and business victims, Mr. Carmakal said. The tactics deployed are so stealthy that Mandiant believes the scope of Chinese intrusion into U.S. and Western targets is likely far broader than currently known, he said.
The method of cyberattack “is a lot harder for us to investigate, and it is certainly exponentially harder for victims to discover these intrusions on their own,” Mr. Carmakal said. “Even with our hunting techniques, it’s hard for them to find it.”
59. Move, Patch, Get Out the Way: 2022 Zero-Day Exploitation Continues at an Elevated Pace
James Sadowski and Casey Charrier, Mandiant, March 20, 2023
Chinese state-sponsored cyber espionage groups exploited more zero-days than other cyber espionage actors in 2022, which is consistent with previous years.
60. Baidu's Ernie writes poems but says it has insufficient information on Xi, tests show
Eduardo Baptista, Reuters, March 20, 2023
MILITARY AND SECURITY THREATS
61. U.S. Intel Helped India Rout China in 2022 Border Clash: Sources
Paul Shinkman, U.S. News and World Report, March 20, 2023
A previously unreported act of intelligence-sharing prevented another deadly standoff in disputed Himalayan territory and rattled the Chinese government, sources say.
India was able to repel a Chinese military incursion in contested border territory in the high Himalayas late last year due to unprecedented intelligence-sharing with the U.S. military, U.S. News has learned, an act that caught China’s People’s Liberation Army forces off-guard, enraged Beijing and appears to have forced the Chinese Communist Party to reconsider its approach to land grabs along its borders.
The U.S. government for the first time provided real-time details to its Indian counterparts of the Chinese positions and force strength in advance of a PLA incursion, says a source familiar with a previously unreported U.S. intelligence review of the encounter into the Arunachal Pradesh region. The information included actionable satellite imagery and was more detailed and delivered more quickly than anything the U.S. had previously shared with the Indian military.
62. India Says Situation with China Fragile, Dangerous in the Himalayan Front
Krishn Kaushik and Nidhi Verma, Reuters, March 18, 2023
The situation between India and China in the western Himalayan region of Ladakh is fragile and dangerous, with military forces deployed very close to each other in some parts, Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar said on Saturday.
At least 24 soldiers were killed when the two sides clashed in the region in mid-2020, but the situation has been calmed through rounds of diplomatic and military talks.
Violence erupted in the eastern sector of the undemarcated border between the nuclear-armed Asia giants in December but did not result in any deaths.
"The situation to my mind still remains very fragile because there are places where our deployments are very close up and in military assessment therefore quite dangerous," Jaishankar said at an India Today conclave.
India-China relations cannot go back to normal, he said, until the border row is resolved in line with the September 2020 in-principle agreement he reached with his Chinese counterpart.
"The Chinese have to deliver on what was agreed to, and they have struggled with that."
Although forces from both sides have disengaged from many areas, discussions are proceeding over unresolved points, Jaishankar said.
"We have made it very clear to the Chinese that we cannot have a breach of peace and tranquility, you can't violate agreement and want the rest of the relationship to continue as though nothing happened. That’s just not tenable."
Jaishankar said he discussed the situation with China's new foreign minister, Qin Gang, on the sidelines of a meeting of the foreign ministers of the G20 nations hosted by India this month.
Regarding India's presidency of G20 this year, Jaishankar expressed hope that New Delhi can make the forum "more true to its global mandate".
"The G20 should not be a debating club or an arena only of the global north. The entirety of global concerns need to be captured. We have already made that point very forcefully," Jaishankar said.
63. China, Cambodia hold first-ever joint maritime military exercises
Reuters, March 20, 2023
China and Cambodia held military naval exercises for the first time in Cambodian waters, the Chinese Ministry of National Defense said on Monday.
Three Chinese and Cambodian ships cooperated with each other to complete formation training and communication exercises on Sunday, the defense ministry said.
More than 200 officers and soldiers from the Army, Navy and joint logistics support units of the Chinese southern theater arrived at Sihanoukville, Cambodia, last week for the "Gold Dragon-2023" joint exercise with the Royal Cambodian Navy, part of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces.
64. China’s secret naval base in Cambodia, through satellite imagery
Andrew Salerno-Garthwaite, Naval Technology, March 14, 2023
Ream Base is a hidden asset for China. But with a new geospatial intelligence system, its operations can be tracked in real-time.
65. Marcos says new military bases with US to be 'scattered' around the Philippines
Neil Jerome Morales, Reuters, March 22, 2023
66. Taiwan says it has contingency plans for China moves while president abroad
Ben Blanchard and Faith Hung, Reuters, March 21, 2023
67. Chinese ships, including one armed with a machine gun, repeatedly enter Japanese waters
Matthew M. Burke and Keishi Koja, Stars and Stripes, March 20, 2023
Tokyo lodged a series of diplomatic protests with Beijing last week after China sent several coast guard vessels, including one armed with a deck-mounted machine gun, near its islets in the East China Sea.
Four Chinese coast guard ships passed the 12-mile territorial limit around the Senkakus eight times in three separate incidents on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, a Japanese coast guard spokesman told Stars and Stripes by phone Monday. Each ship stayed in those waters for less than 24 hours and left without incident.
Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs complained to the Chinese Embassy in Japan and to officials in Beijing on all three days, a ministry spokesman said by phone Monday.
68. VIDEO – Is the Navy ready? How the U.S. is preparing amid a naval buildup in China
CBS 60 Minutes, March 19, 2023
China has spent the last 20 years building the biggest navy in the world. As tensions with that country continue to rise, Norah O’Donnell boarded the USS Nimitz to report on the U.S. Navy’s readiness.
ONE BELT, ONE ROAD STRATEGY
69. Xi invites Putin to China for third Belt and Road Forum
Reuters, March 21, 2023
COMMENT – I’m not aware of Beijing selecting dates yet for the 3rd BARF… when it does, I’ll post them.
70. It’s a New Great Game. Again.
Lynne O’Donnell, Foreign Policy, March 20, 2023
The fringes of Russia’s former empire appear to be fraying as Central Asia looks to a future in which it can choose its own friends and play them off against one another. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine has sullied his standing across the steppe while diverting his attention from countries he regarded as inviolate pieces of the post-Soviet jigsaw—and which are now chafing for domestic and geopolitical change.
Once the heart of a “great game” played out by the Russian and British empires in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Central Asia is again a strategic jewel being fought over by the Big Three, and some smaller players, as the tectonic plates of global influence shift. Russia’s hold over Central Asian publics is slipping, China is still struggling to overcome its own missteps, and the United States is trying to charge for the umpteenth time unto the breach.
The countries, collectively known as the Stans—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—offer plenty of potential rewards in this renewed global tussle. The whole region—especially Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—is rich in reserves of oil, natural gas, uranium, and other critical minerals. That alone attracted China’s clumsy courtship over the last few decades. But since the fall of the U.S.-backed republic in neighboring Afghanistan and the return of the Taliban in 2021, the satellite states of the former Soviet Union have become the West’s bulwark against a resurgence in terrorism and jihad. Add in China’s ambitions for new transshipment routes to Europe for its manufactured output—Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative is literally called the new Silk Road—and Turkey’s plans to renew historic cultural and linguistic ties for security and trade deals, and it’s easy to see why all side roads are leading to Central Asia.
The Economist, March 16, 2023
The Pacific’s small states can pick a way through great-power pressures.
For the annals of great-power competition in the Pacific, the letter from David Panuelo that leaked on March 10th is a keeper. Addressing his country’s Congress and state governors, Micronesia’s outgoing president describes in engrossing detail Chinese efforts to bully and bribe politicians into toeing a pro-China line. Mr Panuelo accuses China of waging “political warfare” against his country.
To mitigate the damage this is doing, he recommends Micronesia switch diplomatic recognition to Taiwan. He claims to have secured a promise of $50m from Taiwan, plus annual payments of $15m, to plug the fiscal hole that shunning China would create.
China’s shameless methods for holding sway among small Pacific island states are no secret. Yet the level of detail Mr Panuelo provides is remarkable—and surely deeply embarrassing for China. “We are bribed to be complicit, and bribed to be silent,” he writes.
He describes Chinese envelopes of cash and offers of trips by private plane to curry favour among politicians and administrators who “advance their personal interest in lieu of the national interest”. In another instance, the Chinese ambassador to Micronesia pushed the covid-19 vaccines at the heart of China’s recent global propaganda campaigns so incessantly that the president had to change his mobile-phone number.
72. China firm wins Solomon Islands port project as Australia watches on
Kirsty Needham, Reuters, March 22, 2023
The Solomon Islands has awarded a multi-million-dollar contract to a Chinese state company to upgrade an international port in Honiara in a project funded by the Asian Development Bank, an official of the island nation said on Wednesday.
The United States and its allies, including Australia, New Zealand and Japan, have held concerns that China has ambitions to build a naval base in the region since the Solomon Islands struck a security pact with Beijing last year.
73. The State of and Prospects for Brazil’s Relations with China
Evan Ellis, Global Americas, March 15, 2023
On March 28, 2023, Brazil’s recently inaugurated President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will make a State Visit to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The visit highlights the significant, longstanding commercial and political relationship between the two countries and the prospects for the relationship to expand and assume a more strategic character under the new Lula administration, with significant implications for the United States and the region.
The Current State of PRC Engagement with Brazil – The Brazil-PRC relationship is both substantial and diverse. Bilateral trade between Brazil and China reached $152.8 billion in 2022, representing a 37-fold jump in twenty years. The trade balance features a substantial $62 billion surplus in Brazil’s favor, albeit due primarily to the nation’s export of lower value-added agricultural goods as well as mining and petroleum products. In the past two decades, PRC-based companies have invested an estimated $70 billion in the country, representing over 40 percent of PRC investments in the region. This highlights the importance of Brazil to China.
OPINION PIECES
74. Leaving China: Why expatriates like me abandoned the futures we planned in China.
Blake Stone-Banks, Persuasion, March 17, 2023
It’s difficult for me to imagine a better place to have lived for the past two decades than China. The country’s rise has been exhilarating, and I have no doubt its future will be as well. But as China opens from its harsh zero-Covid policies, I find myself, along with many long-term expatriates in the country, making my exit to return home to the United States due to political upheavals that have put into question the futures we have long imagined in the Middle Kingdom.
When I arrived in China as a student in 2000, none of my friends owned a phone—cell or landline. We used beepers and public phones for communication. Quickly, though, the technology we used would come to match or leapfrog the kind used by our peers in the Western world. My friends’ first phones would be cell phones, not landlines; mobile payment would precede credit cards; and the social media application WeChat would transform the landscape of life, work, commerce, and governance in ways those in the West still don’t grasp.
Those two decades, however, had their dark spots too. I had friends woken in the night and interrogated about their political beliefs, and I had friends forced to flee for speaking out about gender rights and other social issues. Oppression in China is real and effective. But in order to live everyday life, most people living in China find it necessary to turn a blind eye until it affects them directly.
That became impossible during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the force of China’s technocracy was on full display. Families were torn apart and businesses shuttered. When the government stopped renewing citizens’ passports, the claustrophobia of not being able to leave and the paranoia about what might come next became unbearable. Almost everyone I knew who had a way out took it, even expatriate friends who had been living in China since the 1980s.
Although China hasn’t released any updated numbers, the country’s pre-pandemic census suggests that some had begun to leave even before the Covid crackdown. From 2010 to 2020, Shanghai’s expat population dropped from 208,000 to 163,000. A survey by the European Chamber of Commerce in April 2022 found that 85 percent of foreigners living in China said the lockdown had made them rethink their futures in the country. And before I left, I would frequently walk around formerly expat-rich districts like Shanghai’s French Concession or Beijing’s Sanlitun and be the only foreigner on the street.
China’s expat exodus is occurring during a precarious time for the country: In 2022, China’s total population decreased by more than 800,000 — the first population decline in more than sixty years. Now that the failed zero-Covid policies have been lifted, China is desperately looking to win back both foreign investment and foreign professionals. But the question remains if foreigners will return, and what the lives they lead in post-Covid China will look like.
As then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s plane approached Taiwan last August, I was attending a business dinner in Anhui, a province in eastern China, with several Chinese nationals. It was difficult to talk business as everyone was occupied checking their phones for news of Pelosi’s plane.
Soon, the entire restaurant grew deathly quiet. Not just our table but every person in the restaurant was staring at the live stream of the radar tracking Pelosi’s arrival. At the table next to us, a young couple on a date spent their entire dinner in silence, staring at the glow of their phones. The only sound in the restaurant was the bleep of the radar on their smartphones.
“Don’t worry. You’ll be fine if there’s war,” the company’s CEO comforted me. “You speak Chinese.” The topic of war between America and China had come up with increasing frequency over the past year, often in business contexts, often when I was the only American in the room. No one knew what that would look like, and no one wanted to know.
Back in Shanghai a week later, after another three-day lockdown for my family, I had dinner with a friend who was a Party member and former official who still had some connections. I told him I was thinking of leaving. As a father of two American citizens, I did not like to see kids in the park playing “war” or to watch the military propaganda frequently shared in WeChat groups. He reiterated what more than a few connected families had told me, that Xi’s zero-Covid policies had been unpopular, and that most people, even in government, thought it would be very bad for China to continue shutting the outside world out. Specifically, he reminded me that as we headed into the Party Congress in October, China’s government was not a one-man show.
“There are different contingents, and elders, and former leaders all of whom have a big say. Yes, Xi may get the third term, but when he walks out, look at who’s on his left and his right. Those will be their people, not Xi’s.”
At the Party Congress in October, however, Xi removed the old brass and installed only loyalists. By his side was Li Qiang, the new premier and Xi loyalist who had overseen the Shanghai lockdown earlier that year. Hu Jintao, China’s leader before Xi, was forcibly led out of the Congress in front of the global media.
Since moving back to the America from China a few months ago, I am often asked if I wish I had stayed to see China reopen, if perhaps I left too early. Now connected with former China expats and Chinese here in America, a common answer is it’s still too early to tell. At a basic level, I know several foreigners, myself included, who have no plans to move back until a successor to Xi is named. It is difficult to point to many countries on a positive trajectory under a leader with unchecked power and without term limits.
Foreigners returning to China or moving into China for the first time will find a vastly different landscape than that prior to Covid. China’s leadership has made clear that they will prioritize unification and Party integrity over the economy and the well-being of their people. Although there is no leader yet in the wings to take over from Xi in the next ten years (let alone the next five), leadership does evolve and dialogue remains more important than ever.
Where expatriates of the past decades were drawn by the possibilities of China’s growing openness, the new generation will live under tightening restrictions and greater uncertainty. Alongside heightened geopolitical tensions, this will likely stem the flow of expats from America, Europe, Japan and Korea. As a consequence, new expat communities from other countries like Brazil, Russia, and India may take root.
Regardless of where they are from, a new generation of expats will be good for both China and the world. Because the more engagement the country has with the rest of the world, the less likely it will be to isolate itself from the global community and turn inward. Though I’m not on my way back anytime soon, I hope that the next generation of expats finds a home, and a future, in China.
75. What Kind of Industrial Policy: Progressive or Hamiltonian?
Robert Atkinson, ITIF, March 20, 2023
76. A Coup Would Put Pakistan Squarely in China’s Bloc
Azeem Ibrahim, Foreign Policy, March 20, 2023
Pakistan will then have few friends. The military, if it does successfully take power, is likely to look to China to bail it out. China does not want instability in Pakistan, a country heavily indebted to Beijing (Pakistan is the biggest recipient of loans from China’s Belt and Road initiative). And it has long-standing ties with the Pakistan military, going back to mutual antagonism toward India and the funding of the anti-Soviet campaign in Afghanistan.
Pakistan has been within the Chinese sphere for years, with the Pakistani military underwriting this relationship. The China–Pakistan Economic Corridor is a signature project of the Belt and Road view of the world. But if the army were to launch a coup, things would become dramatically worse for Pakistan’s economy and, likewise, its citizens.
Pakistan would be desperate—ensuring that it would be truly within China’s sphere of influence, in time to take its place amid the autocracies forming part of the world’s growing, authoritarian, Beijing-led bloc.
77. The ‘10 Be Clears’: Clarifying relations with China
Charles Parton, Council on Geostrategy, March 21, 2023
78. Is “The Chinese World” the Future? Confucianism and Xi Jinping
Carlo J.V. Caro, The National Interest, March 19, 2023
79. If China Arms Russia, the U.S. Should Kill China’s Aircraft Industry
Richard Aboulafia, Foreign Policy, March 20, 2023
Beijing’s aerospace future is uniquely dependent on Western companies. U.S. and EU trade sanctions could bring its indigenous aviation sector to a halt.
As Chinese President Xi Jinping meets in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week, the war in Ukraine will be high on the agenda. While the Chinese leader might pressure Russia to pursue a peace deal, there are also worries in Western capitals that the authoritarian allies could agree to work together more closely.
A Chinese decision to provide Russia with weapons would change the world. Only China has the stockpiles and industrial capacity to replace Russia’s ruinous equipment losses in its war against Ukraine. Worse, it would help cement a Russia–China alliance, one pitted against Western interests. U.S. President Joe Biden and other Western leaders have warned China’s leadership that providing lethal technologies to Russia, on top of the non-lethal aid already provided, would have serious consequences.
Indeed, the West does have some leverage. One option would be to bring China’s commercial aircraft industry to a halt, thereby striking a blow against Beijing’s economic, technological, and transport aspirations. It would be a major blow to Xi’s prestige, too, since he has made technological self-sufficiency a key priority for the country.
The aviation industry is not just a matter of pride; it is foundational to China’s infrastructure and an essential mode of transport for many middle-class Chinese. According to the World Bank, passenger air traffic in China grew more than tenfold between 2000 and the 2019 peak, from 62 million passengers to 660 million passengers.
The exponential growth in passenger numbers has made China a major customer for Western-made jets: based on manufacturer-reported numbers, in 2000, China took 2 percent of world jetliner production. In 2018, the peak year for imports, it took 23 percent of world jetliner production.
80. The Age of American Naval Dominance Is Over
Jerry Hendrix, The Atlantic, March 13, 2023
The United States has ceded the oceans to its enemies. We can no longer take freedom of the seas for granted.
81. U.S. companies must stop enabling mass DNA collection in Tibet
Josh Rogin, Washington Post, March 17, 2023
The Chinese government is so innovative in applying advanced technology for repression, sometimes it is hard to keep track. Beijing’s latest, horrible abuse of the Tibetan people is to forcibly collect their DNA, their last remaining vestige of privacy. What’s worse, U.S. companies are still working with the authorities perpetrating these atrocities. They should cut that out right now.
There is overwhelming evidence that Chinese authorities are using mass forced DNA collection in many parts of China — but Tibet is an especially cruel case. Human rights groups report that police are taking blood samples from men, women and children , with no legitimate justification , in all seven prefectures in the Tibetan autonomous region, often showing up at kindergartens. There’s zero indication Tibetans can refuse.
Chinese police in Tibet aren’t exactly hiding the practice; they posted a public request for bids to build a huge DNA database online. In one municipality, an official report said police were instructed “not to miss a [single] village or monastery, and not to miss a [single] household or person,” according to Human Rights Watch. The University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab estimated in September that one quarter to one third of Tibetans had been compelled to hand over DNA samples.
COMMENT – The U.S. company that is supporting this abuse of Tibetans is Thermo Fisher Scientific, which sells DNA test kits. Thermo Fisher fought for years against any prohibition on their support for crimes against Uyghurs until they finally were shamed into action by Human Rights Watch and other NGOs (along with actions by the U.S. Government). In 2019, Thermo Fisher narrowly restricted their sales to Xinjiang police, but went right on supplying other police forces across the PRC.
Now Thermo Fisher is fighting against restricting their sales to Tibetan police.