Matt Turpin's China Articles - October 16, 2022
Friends,
This week the United States issued its latest National Security Strategy which continues the policy shift towards strategic rivalry between the United States and the People’s Republic. Rather than read a bunch of commentary on it and interpreting it through others eyes, I recommend simply reading the original.
Kevin Rudd, the former Australian Labor Party Prime Minister (who just completed a PhD form Oxford on Chinese politics), provides an excellent summary of Xi Jinping’s ideology and insight into what we should expect in the future (SPOILER ALERT – Xi will likely come out of the 20th Party Congress, which is beginning this weekend, more emboldened).
Rudd makes this critical point:
“Xi has brought that era of pragmatic, nonideological governance to a crashing halt. In its place, he has developed a new form of Marxist nationalism that now shapes the presentation and substance of China’s politics, economy, and foreign policy. In doing so, Xi is not constructing theoretical castles in the air to rationalize decisions that the CCP has made for other, more practical reasons. Under Xi, ideology drives policy more often than the other way around.”
As close readers of this newsletter know, I have deep respect for Noah Barkin’s reporting on China policy from Berlin and across Europe. His monthly “Watching China in Europe” is always worth reading. This month Barkin highlights a disturbing trend in Berlin. A year ago as Merkel left power, the German ‘traffic-light’ coalition (SPD (red), FDP (yellow), and Greens) hammered out a forward-leaning agreement that suggested that Berlin would move away from its decades of Wandel durch Handel (change through trade) policy towards the PRC.
It appears that Chancellor Scholtz of the SPD is pulling back from that agreement with various ministries pursuing their own agendas.
Thanks for reading!
Matt
MUST READ
1. United States National Security Strategy
Executive Office of the President, October 12, 2022
2. U.S. Sees ‘Decisive Decade’ Ahead in Competition with China, Russia
Gordon Lubold and Charles Hutzler, Wall Street Journal, October 12, 2022
The U.S. is entering a “decisive decade” as it faces competition with China and an attempt by Russia to upend the international order, while dealing with challenges from climate change to energy to food security, international terrorism and disease, the White House said Wednesday.
The Biden administration released its national-security strategy, a blueprint that outlines the administration’s approach to problems around the world.
The strategy describes the U.S.’s attempt to compete with its adversaries, such as China and Russia, while cultivating alliances with countries that share American interests and objectives.
“Our strategy proceeds from the premise that two strategic challenges—geopolitical competition and shared transnational threats—are intertwined,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Wednesday at an event at Georgetown University.
3. AUDIO – The Little Red Podcast: Spies, Lies and Peaceful Rise
Graeme Smith, Louisa Lim, Susan Shirk, and Alex Joske, The Little Red Podcast, October 14, 2022
China's political event of the decade - its 20th Party Congress - will confirm Xi Jinping's third term as leader of the CCP and could even bestow on him the title of ‘chairman’. With an economy crippled by zero-COVID and global public opinion about China turning precipitously negative, it seems an age since China’s leaders promised a ‘peaceful rise’. Was this peaceful rise stymied by hardliners, or was it all an elaborate influence operation orchestrated by China's spies?
For two very different analyses of developments inside the black box of Chinese politics, we’re joined by Susan Shirk, Research Professor and Chair at the 21st Century China Centre at University of California, San Diego, whose much awaited new book is Overreach: How China Derailed its Peaceful Rise is just out, and Alex Joske, Senior Analyst at Australian Strategic Policy Institute, who’s just written a book called Spies and Lies: How China’s Greatest Covert Operations Fooled the World.
COMMENT: I found this episode to be absolutely fascinating… it starkly shows the generational differences between an older generation of ‘China experts’ who built their knowledge and policy advice on access to insiders within the CCP, many of whom portrayed themselves as reform-minded liberals, and a new generation of researchers who have leveraged publicly available data to show just how many of these ‘insiders’ were used by the Ministry of State Security to take advantage of these same ‘China experts’ and other elites to create a permissive environment for the People’s Republic.
Three years ago, Ellen Nakashima wrote about this “generational clash” and it is obvious that this dynamic is still at play (“Generational clash emerges among U.S. experts in China policy debate,” Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post, August 17, 2019). Ellen’s observation seems even more prescient given the publication of the 2022 National Security Strategy this week and the involvement of many of the younger generation experts in its writing who were at the event Ellen observed in August 2019.
4. The World According to Xi Jinping: What China’s Ideologue in Chief Really Believes
Kevin Rudd, Foreign Affairs, October 9, 2022
In the post–Cold War era, the Western world has suffered no shortage of grand theories of history and international relations. The settings and actors may change, but the global geopolitical drama goes on: variants of realism and liberalism compete to explain and predict state behavior, scholars debate whether the world is witnessing the end of history, a clash of civilizations, or something else entirely. And it is no surprise that the question that now attracts more analytical attention than any other is the rise of China under President Xi Jinping and the challenge it presents to American power. In the run-up to the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), as Xi has maneuvered to consolidate his power and secure an unprecedented third term, Western analysts have sought to decode the worldview that drives him and his ambitions for China.
One important body of thought has been largely absent from this search for understanding, however: Marxism-Leninism. This is odd because Marxism-Leninism has been China’s official ideology since 1949. But the omission is also understandable, since most Western thinkers long ago came to see communist ideology as effectively dead—even in China, where, in the late 1970s, the CCP leader Deng Xiaoping set aside the Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy of his predecessor, Mao Zedong, in favor of something more akin to state capitalism. Deng summed up his thoughts on the matter with characteristic bluntness: Bu zhenglun, “Let’s dispense with theory,” he told attendees at a major CCP conference in 1981. His successors Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao followed his lead, rapidly expanding the role of the market in the Chinese domestic economy and embracing a foreign policy that maximized China’s participation in a global economic order led by the United States.
Xi has brought that era of pragmatic, nonideological governance to a crashing halt. In its place, he has developed a new form of Marxist nationalism that now shapes the presentation and substance of China’s politics, economy, and foreign policy. In doing so, Xi is not constructing theoretical castles in the air to rationalize decisions that the CCP has made for other, more practical reasons. Under Xi, ideology drives policy more often than the other way around. Xi has pushed politics to the Leninist left, economics to the Marxist left, and foreign policy to the nationalist right. He has reasserted the influence and control the CCP exerts over all domains of public policy and private life, reinvigorated state-owned enterprises, and placed new restrictions on the private sector. Meanwhile, he has stoked nationalism by pursuing an increasingly assertive foreign policy, turbocharged by a Marxist-inspired belief that history is irreversibly on China’s side and that a world anchored in Chinese power would produce a more just international order. In short, Xi’s rise has meant nothing less than the return of Ideological Man.
These ideological trends are not simply a throwback to the Mao era. Xi’s worldview is more complex than Mao’s, blending ideological purity with technocratic pragmatism. Xi’s pronouncements about history, power, and justice might strike Western audiences as impenetrable or irrelevant. But the West ignores Xi’s ideological messaging at its own peril. No matter how abstract and unfamiliar his ideas might be, they are having profound effects on the real-world content of Chinese politics and foreign policy—and thus, as China’s rise continues, on the rest of the world.
5. The real reasons why Western companies chase Chinese sales
Jay Newman, Alexander Campbell, and John-David Seelig
Many Western companies have rushed into China as a source of growth over the past twenty years, chasing not only growing demand, but also supportive valuations from investors seeking exposure to fast growing markets.
But as president Xi Jinping tightens his grip, the valuation of many blue-chip companies’ exposure to China could be in for a significant downward adjustment. This isn’t yet on many investors’ radar, but it may be soon.
For hundreds of Western public companies that have invested in China, revenues from those operations have become a significant percentage of overall sales. In 2021, Tesla reported $13bn or 25 per cent of its revenue from Chinese operations. For Disney, $6bn or 8 per cent. For Apple, $69bn or 19 per cent. For Volkswagen, $54bn or 22 per cent.
Those numbers seem compelling, but investors might do well to heed Gilbert & Sullivan: “Things are seldom what they seem, skim milk masquerades as cream.”
The lure of the Chinese market is no surprise. Even in a techno-authoritarian regime there are 1.4bn people who like to buy stuff. But because China is a closed, opaque, and centrally controlled bureaucracy, sales generated there (and earnings, if you can parse what the earnings actually are) cannot be viewed through the same lens as revenue in jurisdictions where property rights are less malleable.
6. Watching China in Europe - October 2022
Noah Barkin, German Marshall Fund, October 5, 2022
Berlin, We Have a Problem
It has been nearly a year since the three parties in the German government unveiled a coalition agreement that promised a new approach to China. In their governing blueprint, the parties condemned human rights abuses in Xinjiang, voiced concerns about Beijing’s security crackdown in Hong Kong, and warned against changes to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait. They also vowed to forge a more united European approach toward Beijing and to work with like-minded partners to reduce strategic dependencies on China. In the future, they declared, German foreign policy would be more coherent and consistent, with ministries working closely together to develop common strategies. The reality, unfortunately, has been quite different.
I will not go into the well-documented differences in Berlin over how to respond to Russia’s war on Ukraine. But I would like to delve into the government’s struggles to send a clear message on China policy. One German official I spoke to recently summed it up this way: “The one area where the US and China seem to agree is that both are thoroughly fed up with the conflicting messages coming out of Berlin.” For nearly a year, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Economy Minister Robert Habeck, both from The Greens, have been trying to turn the language in the coalition agreement into concrete action—and for nearly a year, Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his advisers have been resisting. At first, the differences were obscured because all eyes were trained on Ukraine. And, after all, we did have the occasional hint from Scholz that he found China’s actions in Xinjiang problematic and the dependence of some German firms on the Chinese market worrisome.
Michael Schuman, The Atlantic, October 13, 2022
Although comparisons between Xi and Mao are inevitable, China’s leader today resembles, in many respects, more of an imperial emperor than a Marxist revolutionary. Mao wished to overturn the established order, both at home and abroad, and fomented political and social upheaval to achieve his goals. Xi’s agenda is much closer to imperial China’s. He intends to restore the nation as the dominant power in Asia at the core of a new Sinocentric system, similar in nature to the position it held in the region under the dynasties.
This older historical legacy may be the better guide to understanding Xi’s foreign-policy ambitions. For centuries, the Chinese dynasties formed the political, economic, and cultural center of East Asia. Their influence extended to the far horizons through trade. Xi is seeking to rebuild these ties of influence, and he’s adopting the tools of the emperors to achieve his aim. Even in antiquity, the emperors claimed that their writ embraced “all under heaven.” Using 21st-century technology, Xi has the opportunity to turn ancient rhetoric into modern reality.
Xi’s ambition may sound fantastical to Western ears—the equivalent of the new Italian prime minister aspiring to rebuild the Roman empire—but in China’s context, it doesn’t. A remarkable feature of Chinese history is how often the elite has managed to restore imperial power. On many occasions over millennia, China collapsed in political disarray or succumbed to foreign invasions. Yet, again and again, a leader emerged to found a new dynasty and rebuild the empire.
AUTHORITARIANISM
8. The CCP’s 20th Party Congress: What to look out for
Charles Parton, Council on Geostrategy, October 10, 2022
The Party Congress has three main responsibilities:
To ‘elect’ the members of the CC [Central Committee], both full members and alternates (who attend CC meetings, but do not vote). There are just over 200 of the former, and just over 170 of the latter. The congress also ‘elects’ the members of the CCDI [Central Commission for Discipline Inspection], who number just over 130;
To discuss, amend and pass reports. There are two: by the general secretary and by the CCDI; and,
To revise the CCP (not state) constitution.
At the end of the congress delegates will pass three resolutions endorsing: the general secretary’s report, the CCDI report, and the amendments made to the CCP constitution.
As will become evident from the detail below, it is important to state that the Party Congress does not truly elect or decide. Decisions on personnel, policy and presentation have been settled well in advance – and Xi has been in firm control throughout. The Party Congress is not haute cuisine, but reheating in the microwave.
9. China Direct: Ni hao, Olaf — Danes see threats — Bon week-end for Xi
Stuart Lau, Politico China Direct Newsletter, October 13, 2022
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is having his cake and eating it. On Tuesday, he told a group of mechanical engineers that he was “always sure” Russia would weaponize energy in its relationship with Europe. It would have been a no-brainer and honest foresight had it not come from the man who played a key role in his predecessor Angela Merkel’s government, insisting on building the now kaputt Nord Stream gas pipelines. The same fuzzy messaging applies to his China policy, too.
As my colleague Hans von der Burchard and I reported, Scholz has decided to travel to China and meet President Xi Jinping early next month. He’s going to take a business delegation to the country that just months ago he was asking businesspeople to diversify away from. Zeitenwende isn’t a buzzword that Beijing needs to fear, yet.
10. China wants to change, or break, a world order set by others
The Economist, October 10, 2022
For most of human history, great powers and strong men have been free to inflict horrors on the weak with impunity. For almost eight decades, however, all but a few rogue states have aspired, or paid lip service, to a different world order.
This order was founded in revulsion at the industrialised, racially justified savagery of the second world war. Guided by the ambition “Never Again”, the winners, led by America, drafted conventions that defined unpardonable crimes against humanity, and sought to impose costs on those committing them. Recalling the economic disasters and human miseries that paved the way to world war, the framers of this order built the un and other international institutions to promote co-operation and development.
11. China seeks a world order that defers to states and their rulers
The Economist, October 10, 2022
The time has come, says Xi Jinping, for China to lead the “reform of global governance” and “move closer to the centre stage.” Defenders of the prevailing order are braced for a contest over whose norms will dominate the 21st century. Some wonder if China’s goal is to replace existing rules with its own. They risk missing a Chinese plan that is already under way, to make the existing order do less, full stop.
Talk to well-connected scholars in Beijing and Shanghai about the world order, and they will complain about Western meddling. They accuse America and its allies of imposing an obsession with human rights on an order whose original, modest mission was to help states coexist and trade peacefully. China claims to be a defender of the status quo and calls America its disrupter. But behind this apparently simple complaint lies a vast ambition. China’s aim is to roll back decades of efforts to ensure that the actions of governments, international bodies and private firms are guided by core principles that the West calls “universal values”.
12. China is exerting greater power across Asia—and beyond
The Economist, October 10, 2022
It has become a master of political and economy leverage
“Ihave never heard the Chinese say that they want to overthrow the international order,” observes a senior Western official who has spent hours with the country’s leaders. “On the other hand, they are putting their pieces all over the board.” The question of the age, he ventures, is whether China will play by rules that other powers can accept.
Chinese leaders have made welcome commitments to tackle global challenges, from climate change to biodiversity, the official says. Often, though, they offer a minimum of concrete assistance, and always on their own terms. It is impressive to watch how China applies many levers of statecraft and economic power as it patiently piles up economic and political capital, he concludes. To what precise end is unknown.
13. China has chilling plans for governing Taiwan
The Economist, October 10, 2022
There may be few painless options left
When explaining why they must control the island of Taiwan, China’s communist rulers tell a story of past shame and future vindication. “The Taiwan question arose as a result of weakness and chaos in our nation, and it will be resolved as national rejuvenation becomes a reality,” declares a State Council white paper on Taiwan policy that was issued in August.
As party bosses tell it, recovering Taiwan will erase 19th-century humiliations, when a decaying Chinese empire lost tracts of territory to foreign powers. It will heal scars left by Japan’s occupation of the island from 1895 to 1945. Above all, it will mark a final victory in the civil war left unfinished since 1949, when Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the defeated, American-backed Nationalist regime, led millions of troops and refugees into exile on Taiwan. Though this is not said aloud, if Xi Jinping as boss of the People’s Republic ever leads a victory parade through Taiwan’s capital, Taipei, it will mark his ascension into China’s pantheon of immortal rulers, alongside Mao Zedong and the great unifying emperors.
14. In Hong Kong, Sanctioned Russian Tycoon’s Superyacht Sparks U.S.-China Spat
Newley Purnell, Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2022
15. China’s Covid-19 Lockdowns Deal Another Blow to Consumer Spending
Stella Yifan Xie, Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2022
A renewed wave of pandemic-related lockdowns in major Chinese cities is hampering hopes for a recovery in consumer spending, showing how difficult it is for Beijing to rekindle growth without loosening Covid-19 restrictions.
Official data released in recent days showed consumer spending falling sharply during the seven-day National Day holiday when compared with a year earlier, while a private survey of services activity fell into contraction in September.
16. Jack Ma’s Investment Firm Struggles to Raise Money in China
Juro Osawa, The Information, October 10, 2022
Jack Ma, China’s most iconic entrepreneur, whose swift fall from grace with government authorities captivated the country and broader business world, has a new problem: Chinese investors are afraid to give him money.
17. ‘Fortress Beijing’ eliminates threats ahead of Communist party congress
Edward White, Maiqi Ding, and Xinning Liu, Financial Times, October 11, 2022
Officials hail ‘iron fist’ clampdown as Xi Jinping prepares to be anointed leader for third term.
“Fortress Beijing” is ready. More than 1mn alleged criminals have been arrested; travellers on the Chinese capital’s trains are being forced to prove their water bottles do not carry dangerous substances by taking sips; and airports across China are redoubling surveillance of ethnic minorities.
With just days until the Chinese Communist party’s most important political meeting in a decade, President Xi Jinping’s security lieutenants are intensifying a months-long crackdown.
Stricter security precautions are common in the capital around big political events, but the significance of this year’s congress, at which Xi is expected to secure an unprecedented third term as party leader and head of its military commission, has inspired additional zeal.
Under the Ministry of Public Security’s “100-day operation”, which started in June, more than 1.4mn people have been arrested across the country.
Qiu Baoli, head of the ministry’s public security administration bureau, said the special operation had laid a “solid foundation” for safeguarding the quinquennial party congress, scheduled to open on Sunday.
The crackdown, he added, had been enforced with an “iron fist” but had boosted the “people’s sense of happiness and security”.
Security efforts have been tightened in parts of the country that Beijing considers higher risk because of large ethnic minority populations.
At the main airport in Baotou, a city in Inner Mongolia, security staff have been on high alert and received additional training to search for prohibited items on travellers.
The central government views the northern region as a threat since mass protests broke out among ethnic Mongol communities two years ago over China’s repressive policies toward the non-Han minorities.
In Beijing, the security net around sensitive sites is especially tight, including the Great Hall of the People, on the western edge of Tiananmen Square, where the congress will be held, and the Jingxi Hotel, where many of the thousands of delegates will stay.
18. Rare Beijing Protest Channels Covid Frustrations Before Communist Party Meeting
Yoko Kubota, Jonathan Cheng, and Joyu Wang, Wall Street Journal, October 13, 2022
COMMENT: Apparently, not everyone is pleased with the ‘iron fist’ clampdown around ‘Fortress Beijing.’
19. When Chinese protesters came up against Xi's security machine
Martin Quin Pollard, Reuters, October 13, 2022
20. Lessons learned: how the Soviet Union’s collapse led Xi Jinping to demand military loyalty
Minnie Chen, South China Morning Post, October 12, 2022
CCTV documentary details events that shaped Xi, and mistakes he learned to avoid. But an expert cautions that a loyal army doesn’t mean a ‘capable fighting force’.
21. No Limits: Xi’s Support For Putin Is Unwavering
Matthew Johnson, John Pomfret, and Matt Pottinger, FDD, October 11, 2022
After nearly three years of self-imposed isolation, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping traveled abroad last month to Kazakhstan and then Uzbekistan to attend the Beijing-backed Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit.
On the meeting’s sidelines, Xi also held a much-publicized one-on-one exchange with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the first time the two autocrats have met in person since the Russian leader launched a full-blown invasion of Ukraine in February. Media coverage of the bilateral exchange concluded that the Sino-Russian “no limits” partnership was cooling.
In fact, a closer examination of statements and actions by Beijing and Moscow before, during, and after the exchange suggests the opposite.
22. AUDIO – How China's Communist Party Exploited the West's Openness
Michael Wills and Aaron Friedberg, National Bureau of Asian Research, October 8, 2022
Aaron Friedberg discusses his book, Getting China Wrong.
23. Hong Kong schools tread cautiously in push to make students love China
Theodora Yu and Christian Shepherd, Washington Post, October 7, 2022
ENVIRONMENTAL HARMS
24. China Has Built 14 Overseas Coal Plants Since Vowing No New Ones
Dan Murtaugh, Bloomberg, September 22, 2022
A year after President Xi Jinping promised China would stop building coal power plants overseas, the country has completed 14 such facilities beyond its borders and will finish another 27 soon, according to a new report.
25. China approves 15 GW of new coal-fired power in H1 – research
Reuters, September 28, 2022
Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, September 2022
27. Newly Published Research Traces Lead Pollution in Alaska and the Arctic to Industry in China
Bob Keyes, Colby News, September 15, 2022
New research from a team of scientists led by Colby Assistant Professor of Geology Bess Koffman reveals that lead pollution in Denali National Park and at Arctic sites is predominantly sourced from China, despite the phasing out of leaded gasoline in that country in 2001.
The new findings, recently published in the academic journal Environmental Science & Technology, are the first assessment of changes in the composition of long-range-transported pollutants since 2001.
The research conclusively shows that China’s lead-additive ban has had little impact because of the country’s continued focus on coal-burning for energy production and extensive mining and smelting of non-ferrous metals, such as copper, nickel, lead, and zinc. In addition, lead pollution is generated through iron and steel production, cement production, waste incineration, and other industrial activities. In fact, from 2013 to 2015 emissions from these industrial activities reached an estimated 37,000 metric tons per year and accounted for 78 percent of all East Asian emissions into the North Pacific region.
Koffman and her research team collected and analyzed surface snow from various elevations in Denali National Park in Alaska in June 2016. The scientists were able to trace the pollution to its source by “fingerprinting” atmospheric particles and measuring change over time. Several Colby students contributed to the research.
Koffman’s specialty is determining the origins of atmospheric dust in ice cores using geochemical approaches. By analyzing isotope ratios in the dust, scientists can better understand how the atmosphere has responded to past climate changes. Koffman has applied isotopic “fingerprinting” approaches to dust from Alaska, New Zealand, and Antarctica.
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE AND COERCION
28. Government seeks answers from Chinese embassy on ‘police service station’ in Dublin
Conor Gallagher, Irish Times, October 8, 2022
A recent report from human rights group Safeguard Defenders said the station is part of a worldwide network of overseas Chinese law enforcement offices, some of which have been known to “persuade” Chinese residents to return home to face criminal charges.
Some of these stations are accused of pressurising or threatening emigrants and their family members to force them to return home.
29. China In Eurasia Briefing: What to Watch For in Xi's Third Term
Reid Standish, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, October 5, 2022
30. China Hails Elon Musk’s Proposal for Taiwan Unification
Bloomberg, October 9, 2022
Geremie Barme, The China Story, September 6, 2022
32. China Builds a New Symbol In The Balkans -- At The Site Of A NATO Bombing
Reid Standish, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, October 4, 2022
33. Confucius Institutes in universities ‘part of Party’s propaganda system’, think tank finds
Louisa Clearance-Smith, The Telegraph, October 8, 2022
The Henry Jackson Society report found that only four of the 30 institutes in the UK were solely providing cultural and language education.
Only four of the 30 Confucius Institutes set up within British universities by the Chinese Government are solely providing “cultural and language” education, according to a report.
The majority of the institutes are conducting other activities, which in some cases include political lobbying and in other instances, the facilitation of technology partnerships, research has found.
University administrators have repeatedly justified the institutes by claiming that their focus on language and culture was anodyne. The Henry Jackson Society think tank report, however, found that of the 30 Confucius Institutes in the UK, it could only establish that four were solely providing cultural and language education.
The report identified that the institutes had engaged in activities that included hosting pro-China receptions in Parliament; expanding China’s reach into UK advanced manufacture; hosting diplomatic functions; publishing political pamphlets; flying politicians to China; and promoting China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
The Confucius Institute at Oxford Brookes University was set up in 2016 with Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press (FLTRP), a publishing company in China, which the research found was directly overseen by the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda department. The Institute has set up 100 “Confucius Classrooms” in nearby schools, the report claimed.
HUMAN RIGHTS AND RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
34. Pakistan indulges in double speak at UNHRC resolution over China’s Uyghur persecution
The Print, October 7, 2022
While Pakistan claims to speak for the rights of Muslims, the country at a UNHRC resolution on Thursday “appreciated” China’s “efforts” to protect the minority communities in Xinjiang. This region has been widely known for Beijing’s grave human rights violations.
Pakistan appreciates and supports China’s efforts for advancing socio-economic development, harmony, peace and stability in Xinjiang, Pakistan’s Ambassador said in a statement on a resolution on Xinjiang at UNHRC.
It is pertinent to mention that 12 out of 17 (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries voted in favour of China. Four of these OIC countries abstained.
Somalia is the only OIC country that voted in favour of the decision of holding a debate on the human rights situation in China’s Xinjiang.
While Pakistan speaks for Muslims on hand, its statement supporting China showcased a different picture.
The Ambassador said China pursued the path of dialogue and constructive engagement with the UN Human Rights machinery and stated how Beijing is creating an enabling environment for the enjoyment of fundamental human rights in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China.
“Pakistan remains of the firm view that the perspective and consent of the concerned States should be given utmost importance when dealing with the affairs which fall exclusively within their sovereign jurisdiction,” the ambassador added.
Meanwhile, India on Thursday abstained from voting on a United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution on holding a debate on the human rights situation in China’s Xinjiang.
The draft resolution on “holding a debate on the situation of human rights in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China” was rejected in the 47-member Council after 17 members voted in favour, 19 members voted against, including China, and 11 abstentions, including India, Brazil, Mexico and Ukraine.
A UN report said that the violations have taken place in the context of the Chinese Government’s assertion that it is targeting terrorists among the Uyghur minority with a counter-extremism strategy that involves the use of so-called Vocational Educational and Training Centres (VETCs), or re-education camps.
In a strongly-worded assessment at the end of the report, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said that the extent of arbitrary detentions against Uyghur and others, in the context of “restrictions and deprivation more generally of fundamental rights, enjoyed individually and collectively, may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.”
The systems of arbitrary detention and related patterns of abuse since 2017, said OHCHR, “come against the backdrop of broader discrimination” against Uyghur and other minorities.
35. Hong Kong detains first teenagers under national security law
Malu Cursino, BBC, October 9, 2022
Five teenagers have been sentenced to three years' detention in Hong Kong for advocating overthrow of the Beijing government.
It is the first time the national security law has been used in court against under-18s in Hong Kong.
36. Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture: Crackdown on Islam Intensifies
Dilnur Sultanov, Bitter Winter, October 7, 2022
A new “political reeducation” system answers the protests against the detention of popular religious figures.
In the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang, the last few weeks have seen mass arrests of Kazakh and Uyghur Muslims, in preparation for the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which will open on October 16.
A new system of “political reeducation” is being implemented. Inmates of transformation through education camps, some of whom had been released in past years, are now detained for 15 days, then released, then after 15 days detained again, and so on.
37. China: Online Performances Cannot Refer to Illegal Religion or Criticize the Party
Zhou Kexin, Bitter Winter, October 13, 2022
INDUSTRIAL POLICIES AND ECONOMIC ESPIONAGE
38. US cities fight to attract foreign investors’ money
Amanda Chu and Peter Spiegel, Financial Times, October 6, 2022
For much of the 21st century, the US has been the undisputed champion of attracting foreign investment. Despite a Great Recession and spates of political dysfunction, multinationals from around the globe continued to pour money into the world’s largest economy, an influx that swelled to a record $468bn in 2015.
But in the pandemic-stricken year of 2020, the US nearly lost that crown, according to data compiled by the UN. China, which had been slowly gaining on its American competitors, came within $2bn of claiming the top slot, prompting hand-wringing in the US over whether the fast-growing, rising Asian power would permanently supplant its geopolitical rival.
“It really caused huge competitive issues for the United States,” says Patrick Dine, chief executive of PSD Global, an international business consultancy, adding that China’s rise sparked “political pressures” to reverse the trend.
Last year, with China struggling to maintain its “zero Covid” strategy, the US was easily back on top, surging to $367bn in foreign inflows — more than double the $181bn taken in by the Chinese economy. And 2022 is shaping up to be another banner year, with at least 12 “megaprojects” — investments worth at least $1bn — announced by overseas investors in the US, totalling $34.9bn in capital expenditure, according to data from fDi Markets, an information provider owned by the Financial Times that tracks greenfield foreign direct investment, or cross-border investments that create new jobs and facilities.
“There is definitely a lot of uncertainty right now in the United States,” says Nancy McLernon, head of the Global Business Alliance, a trade association representing the largest foreign multinationals in the US. “But when I talk to executives at my member companies, they’re feeling bullish.”
39. Alipay Drops Off List of Shanghai Priority High-Tech Firms
Lulu Yilun Chen, Bloomberg, October 6, 2022
40. Running Target: Next-Level US Tech Controls on China
Reva Goujon, Rhodium Group, September 28, 2022
41. U.S. Suppliers Halt Operations at Top Chinese Memory Chip Maker
Yoko Kubota, Raffaele Huang, and Asa Fitch, Wall Street Journal, October 12, 2022
U.S. chip-equipment suppliers are pulling out staff based at China’s leading memory-chip maker and pausing business activities there, according to people familiar with the matter, as they grapple with the impact of Commerce Department semiconductor export restrictions.
42. Washington insiders launch Quad fund to take on China
Matthew Cranston, Australian Financial Review, October 12, 2022
43. Moderna refused China request to reveal vaccine technology
Financial Times, October 1, 2022
CYBER AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
44. Mandiant unearths new espionage-related malware families affecting VMWare hypervisors
Derek B. Johnson, SC Media, September 29, 2022
Mandiant has discovered a new ecosystem of espionage-related malware targeting VMware ESXi, Linux vCenter servers, and Windows virtual machines that offers an attacker persistent administrative access, allows them to transfer files between hypervisors and guest machines, tamper with logging and execute arbitrary commands between virtual machines.
The activity, detailed in a report released this morning, is being tracked under a new cluster, meaning Mandiant has not yet tied it to any previously known advanced persistent threat hacking group.
…
Origin of malware unknown, but "nexus" linked to China
The company offered few details regarding attribution or the identity or industries of the victims, saying only that the activity appears to have been done for espionage purposes and that they believe it has a “nexus to China,” an assessment that was made with only low confidence. That language is typically used by threat intelligence companies to convey that they believe a group may be operating from within a country or in ways that further their national interest but can’t conclusively be tied to any particular government.
The Chinese government is known for using a wide variety of hacking teams — some working directly within branches like the Ministry of State Security, as well as criminal hacking groups that may moonlight for or have only informal ties to the government — in a decades-long campaign to spy on private industry in the U.S. and other Western governments, steal data and intellectual property and bolster its own domestic economy. More recently, FBI Director Christopher Wray has said that "the greatest long term threat to our nation’s information and intellectual property, and to our economic vitality, is the counterintelligence and economic espionage threat from China."
45. Bad VIB(E)s Part One: Investigating Novel Malware Persistence Within ESXi Hypervisors
Alexander Marvi, Jeremy Koppen, Tufail Ahmed, and Jonathan Lepore, Mandiant, September 28, 2022
Coco Feng, South China Morning Post, October 8, 2022
The future of one of the world’s most influential apps remains murky as it faces pressure from Western lawmakers, Chinese regulations and investors. ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming is no longer at the company’s helm, but he is said to still be making the big decisions concerning TikTok.
Suzanne Smalley, Cyberscoop, September 20, 2022
48. U.S. FCC set to ban approvals of new Huawei, ZTE equipment- document
David Shepardson, Reuters, October 13, 2022
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is set to ban approvals of new telecommunications equipment from China's Huawei Technologies and ZTE in the United States on national security grounds, according to a document posted by the agency.
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel last week circulated the proposed ban to the other three commissioners for final approval. The companies would not be able to sell new equipment in the United States without equipment authorizations.
MILITARY AND SECURITY THREATS
49. America’s arsenal is in need of life support
Bradley Bowman and Mark Montgomery, Defense News, October 12, 2022
These munitions challenges are not only relegated to ground warfare munitions or the situation in Ukraine. China now boasts the largest naval force in the world, and deterring or defeating an attack by Beijing on Taiwan would require the U.S. military to maintain the capability and capacity to sink an extraordinary number of Chinese vessels. Yet, once again, the U.S. military lacks the requisite number of munitions.
The Long Range Anti-Ship Missile is a consummate example. The LRASM has a 500-mile-plus range that can launch from U.S. Air Force (B-1 and soon B-52) and Navy (F-18 and soon P-8) aircraft, placing China’s naval fleet at risk. Unfortunately, the Pentagon only has about 200 of these missiles today; recent war games consistently indicate the United States needs about 800-1,200 to deter or defeat a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
Despite that fact, the average annual LRASM procurement rate across FY20-FY22 was only 38 missiles (including both the U.S. Navy and Air Force). For FY23, the Pentagon requested a total of 88 missiles. At that rate, it would take until around 2032 to accumulate around 1,000 missiles in the U.S. inventory. Such a lethargic procurement plan is perilously disconnected from warnings that Beijing could conduct an attack long before that.
50. America’s Military Faces a ‘Window of Maximum Danger’
Kate Bachelder Odell, Wall Street Journal, October 7, 2022
51. We must tackle China’s satellite-busting technology, says GCHQ chief
Larisa Brown, Times of London, October 10, 2022
52. Choking off China’s Access to the Future of AI
Gregory Allen, CSIS, October 11, 2022
New U.S. Export Controls on AI and Semiconductors Mark a Transformation of U.S. Technology Competition with China.
ONE BELT, ONE ROAD STRATEGY
53. Blood gold: Soldiers in Ghana kick residents out of homes near disputed China-owned mine
Edward Adeti and Eryk Bagshaw, Sydney Morning Herald, September 30, 2022
Soldiers have kicked local miners out of their homes to make way for the expansion of a Chinese mine at the centre of a $395 million dispute with Australian mining firm Cassius.
In Talensi, northern Ghana, some miners have sold their plots to the Chinese state-linked mining company Shaanxi. Others have refused to give up their land. The stand-off has triggered intervention by the military to seize the land after the Ghanaian government approved the Chinese mine’s plans to expand to 50 times its original size.
The dispute comes at a delicate time for Shaanxi, now known as Earl International, as it attempts to expand its operations despite allegations of trespass, theft and murder. The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age revealed in August that the Chinese state-backed mining firm had been embroiled in a dispute with Cassius after the Australian miner alleged it had dug underneath its concession to steal millions of dollars worth of gold.
Earl International is also facing claims that it has killed dozens of local miners to stop them from entering its mining area since 2013. Earl International has denied the allegations.
54. FROM ISSUE 35 (SEPTEMBER 4, 2022) – Blood Gold
Eryk Bagshaw and Edward Adeti, Sydney Morning Herald, August 25, 2022
OPINION PIECES
Larry Diamond, Foreign Affairs, October 8, 2022
56. The Tragedy of Taiwan’s Success
Orville Schell, The Wire China, October 9, 2022
57. Party of One: The CCP Congress and Xi Jinping’s Quest to Control China
Jude Blanchette, Foreign Affairs, October 14, 2022
Besides prolonging Xi’s tenure, the congress will have broader consequences. The eventual lineup of the CCP’s Politburo, the Politburo’s Standing Committee (PBSC), and the PLA Central Military Commission will undoubtedly impact the precise, if marginal, contours of China’s domestic and foreign policy development and execution.
Subordinates matter, even in China’s increasingly personalist dictatorship.
If the director of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission, Yang Jiechi, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, China’s current foreign policy frontmen, retire and are replaced by hacks or loyalists, one can expect the space for considered deliberation on diplomatic matters to shrink even further.
If a commissar such as Miao Hua rises to the position of CMC vice chair, this will mean Xi is surrounded by advisers who think primarily in political, not military, terms—a dynamic fraught with risks of miscalculation.
If He Lifeng, a longtime Xi ally and the current head of the National Development and Reform Commission, replaces the current economic czar, Liu He, it would signal that Beijing continues to place importance on economic growth. But with He also comes the acknowledgment that economic policy will continue to prioritize Xi’s agenda of high-tech industrial policy and efforts at “self-sufficiency” in areas at risk to global supply chain disruptions and restrictions. Recent actions by the Biden administration to limit China’s access to chips and related components likely strengthen Xi’s resolve to create a “Fortress China.”
58. AUDIO – Counterbalance Ep. 48: Andrew Hastie on the China Challenge
Michael Doran and Andrew Hastie, Hudson Institute, October 13, 2022
Andrew Hastie is the Australian Shadow Defense Minister and member of Parliament. In this episode he is interviewed about the emerging strategy against the PRC. (which was confirmed and reinforced by the publication this week of the 2022 U.S. National Security Strategy).
Hastie argues that Xi Jinping clearly seeks to dethrone the United States as the leader of the international order and remake the international order in its own image, Xi does not hesitate to threaten Australia in pursuit of that goal. Hastie offers his views on the PRC’s ambitions, its intimidation tactics, and how we should respond.
59. Failing to take Putin and Xi at their word
Alexis Papazoglou, IAI News, October 10, 2022
60. The disappointment in store for Australian commodity believers
Karen Maley, Australian Financial Review, October 11, 2022
Investors have spent most of this year waiting for Beijing to rescue its flagging economy and cushion the impact of the imploding real estate bubble. Their hopes look set to be dashed.
Very slowly, the dismal realisation is dawning on local investors that Beijing has no intention of launching a mega-stimulus to boost Chinese growth, and help buoy commodity prices and the Australian dollar.
For most of this year, investors have assured themselves that it’s only a matter of time before China unveils new and more aggressive measures to support property and infrastructure investment, which will translate into stronger demand for commodities, and especially iron ore.
61. Xi Jinping: when enough is too much
Hamish McDonald, Lowy Institute, October 12, 2022
He’s got his 2,300 hand-picked delegates lined up for the Communist Party of China (CPC) congress starting 16 October, and he’s junked the previous limit of two five-year terms as president. So, China’s supreme leader of the last ten years, Xi Jinping, looks assured of at least another five years in power. Onwards towards contesting world domination is the fear among strategic pundits elsewhere.
But if you’re worried about the rise of China, maybe you should be rooting for Xi to have another five-year term, or even two or three more. Consider what he’s achieved in his ten years at the top.
He’s brought the once rampaging Chinese economy to a near stand-still. When President Xi got the top jobs at the 2012 party congress, China’s economy was growing at 7.8 per cent a year. In the first half of this year, growth was 2.2 per cent annually, trailing behind most other Asian countries and even the United States. China’s financial system is burdened with debt and over-capacity in housing construction, exports and infrastructure as a result of Xi’s priority on immediate growth, achieved by pumping up these sectors. For more than a decade, economists inside and outside of China have been advising a switch to domestic consumption and services. But that would have meant the CPC loosening control on individuals and private enterprise – a no-no for the “chairman of everything” who favours state-owned enterprise.
Recently, he’s made things worse by insisting on a zero-Covid strategy, shutting down Shanghai, Chengdu and other economic powerhouses.
As well, he’s been wringing the critical and creative life out of China. One by one, he’s smothered centres of independent thinking. Defence lawyers. Civil society organisations. Questioning academics. Independent film-makers. And he’s repressed private business – the most vibrant part of China’s economy – such as Jack Ma’s e-commerce groups Ant and Alibaba, which pioneered China’s rapid move into a service economy.
On the foreign policy front, Xi dropped Deng Xiaoping’s low-profile maxim, instead authorising “wolf warrior” diplomacy, ramping up industrial and cyber espionage, and intensifying CPC “United Front Work” influence-building operations aboard. It’s resulted in a global backlash that cut Chinese industry off from many high-tech collaborations.
Hong Kong? Xi proposed integrating it into a wider “Greater Bay Area” with nearby industries and business in the Pearl River Delta. Great idea, if it meant Hong Kong’s financial, legal, academic and media standards would filter into these other regions. Instead, he used the reasonable Hong Kong mass protests against proposed extraditions to Chinese mainland courts as an excuse for sweeping political intervention – in effect taking this previous beacon of good governance downwards towards the arbitrary laws used on the mainland.
Meanwhile, Xi diverted a trillion dollars of China’s savings into his Belt and Road Initiative, financing prestige facilities and hastily-conceived infrastructure schemes, often in countries with poor fiscal standards such as Sri Lanka. Much of this money has had to be either written off or converted into equity in insolvent assets. The BRI’s heavily subsidised rail link across the Eurasian landmass into Europe has been choked by war in Ukraine and European sanctions on Russia. Xi now needs a longer rail route, skirting south of Russia.
Xi has even tried to exert his powers in the bedrooms of China, relaxing the one-child policy started by Deng in 1978. But he has failed to reignite passion, or at least procreation. China’s women are showing less and less interest in getting married and having babies. Next year, the country’s population will start to decline and will be overtaken by India’s. The proportion of aged people needing more social support will rise inexorably, crimping the state budget for other things. According to the Australian population and migration expert Abul Rizvi, using the latest United Nations data, by the end of the century, China will shrink from the present 1.4 billion people to about 777 million. That’s not an entirely bad thing: even if the economy grows only a little in the years ahead, per capita income will double. China can grow old and get rich, after all. But Beijing likes to boast about speaking for the world’s biggest nation.
62. We should turn China’s tactics to our own advantage
Times of London, October 9, 2022
There is little risk of Xi Jinping failing to secure a third term as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party when its national congress begins in a week’s time. Mr Xi has steadily tightened his grip on the world’s second-biggest economy since he came to power in 2012. At the last congress, in 2017, his philosophy — “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” — was inserted into the constitution, elevating him above his two immediate predecessors. Some onlookers believe he will now bring back the position of party chairman, a title last held by Mao Zedong. The direction is clear: Mr Xi intends to be the most consequential Chinese leader since the father of the revolution died in 1976.
The West is rightly worried by Mr Xi’s ambitions and China’s rise. American military chiefs believe Beijing wants to be in a position to invade Taiwan by 2027. China’s defence ministry says it aims to have completed the modernisation of its armed forces by 2035. By the middle of this century, Beijing aims to have realised the Chinese dream of “national rejuvenation”.
China has become both more confident and more fractious as sentiment has hardened against it in recent years. The end of David Cameron’s government and the election of Donald Trump marked turning points. Mr Trump’s trade tariffs, the ousting of Huawei from the UK’s 5G mobile network, the Hong Kong protests and revelations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang province have polarised the two sides. In Mr Xi, the West sees a generational threat to peace and economic stability — a perception he exacerbated by cementing a “friendship without limits” with Russia after Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. In return, China feels harassed and subject to double standards. Beijing’s furious reaction when the US Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, visited Taipei in August reflected its belief that others interfere in its sphere of influence in a way they would not tolerate.
The petulance stems from fear. It was once a given that China’s economy would overtake America’s. Yet, despite a population four times the size, China’s GDP still lags far behind — $17.7 trillion last year versus $23 trillion. An obsession with controlling Covid has hammered its economy. Crackdowns on the heavily indebted property industry and tech companies deemed to have become tall poppies have also hit growth. After years of expansion driven by a burgeoning middle class, China faces a problem more commonly associated with western countries: an ageing population. Its workforce could decline by 15 per cent in the next 15 years. The research firm Capital Economics thinks China’s economy could pull alongside America’s by the mid-2030s, only to be dragged back again by demographics.
Above all, China and Mr Xi fear social unrest. Beijing watched with horror as Hong Kong descended into near-anarchy in 2019 and 2020. The imposition of a wide-ranging national security law in response received much attention. Less has been paid to the change in tone since then. In July, Mr Xi gave a speech marking the 25th anniversary of the territory’s return to China. He invoked “one country, two systems”, the formula under which Hong Kong is meant to be governed, 16 times. This was a nervous leader desperate to reassure.
An advantage dictators wield over their democratic counterparts is longer timescales. Mr Cameron’s “golden era” gave way to the cautiousness of Theresa May, who considered throwing the Chinese out of the Hinkley Point C nuclear project. Boris Johnson flip-flopped, his innate enthusiasm tempered by pressure from the US and the right of his party. In this summer’s Tory leadership race Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak competed to sound the more hawkish.
It is time for a more consistent approach. This means being tough where necessary and considerate where possible. China is the UK’s biggest import partner — we bought £63.6 billion of goods last year, 13.3 per cent of our total — and our sixth-biggest export partner. Decoupling completely is neither realistic nor desirable. Britain must stand up to China while continuing to deal with it. The two things are not immiscible, as Washington and Wall Street know well.
Truss rightly took back her churlish comments about Emmanuel Macron last week, describing the French president as a friend at a summit in Prague. There has been a more constructive tone on Ireland and the EU from Steve Baker, the Northern Ireland minister. Ms Truss and her foreign secretary, James Cleverly, must apply this spirit of pragmatism to China, too. Bursts of antagonism from leaders who have to grapple with re-election every five years are not the way to contain a strategic rival who thinks in 50-year spans.
63. Security, Not Growth, Is Xi’s Focus
Kevin Rudd, Wall Street Journal, October 12, 2022
The National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, held every five years, formally appoints the 25-member Politburo and its seven-member standing committee. The names of those elevated to senior positions have been of deep significance to China watchers since 1982, when Deng Xiaoping launched the era of “reform and opening.”
The 20th Congress, which gets under way Oct. 16, will be different. There’s only one appointment that matters now: Xi Jinping, China’s Chairman of Everything. The delegates will reappoint Mr. Xi to a third five-year term as general secretary by a vote of 2,296 to 0. He is also likely to be officially designated as the country’s “great navigator,” the “people’s leader” or even “chairman,” likening him to Mao Zedong and further entrenching his power.
Mr. Xi has changed the fundamental rules of Chinese politics. His rolling anticorruption and political rectification campaigns have produced a reign of terror among officials. And rather than a Politburo reflecting a balance of contending forces and interests across the elite as in the past, the new leadership will likely be overwhelmingly composed of Xi loyalists.