Taiwanese Voters Defy Beijing's Threats
Friends,
As you’ve likely seen, the Taiwanese people went to the polls on Saturday and elected Dr. Lai Ching-te (also known as William Lai) president. The President-elect will take office on May 20, 2024. If past is prologue, analysts in Beijing and elsewhere will be paying close attention to the inaugural speech he gives that day.
What happened? The election results matched what many analysts had been predicting since the collapse of the KMT-TPP coalition in late November: Lai (with 40%) defeated his two challengers, the KMT’s Hou Yu-ih (with 33.5%) and the TPP’s Ko Wen-je (with 26.5%) in Taiwan’s first-past-the-post system.
Lai’s margin of victory was much smaller than the last two elections in 2016 and 2020, when the DPP under President Tsai Ing-wen defeated their KMT challengers by 25 percentage points and 18.5 points, respectively.
The DPP narrowly lost its parliamentary majority in the Legislative Yuan (LY) that it had held during all eight years of Tsai Ing-wen’s presidency. In the 113-seat LY, the KMT secured 52 seats (with 2 more won by independents aligned with the KMT), the DPP won 51, and the TPP holds 8 seats. This could present major challenges for President-elect Lai and his Administration as the KMT and TPP are unlikely to grant him legislative victories as they shift their attention to the local and municipal elections in 2026 and the next national election in 2028.
But this legislative breakdown is not as bad for the DPP as some had predicted. The KMT, even with its independent allies, fell well short of the absolute majority (57) that it desired and the November collapse of the KMT-TPP coalition suggests that it will be difficult for those two parties to work together in tandem against the DPP. President-elect Lai will have some maneuver space if he can keep the KMT and TPP apart.
Would the results have been different, had the KMT-TPP coalition held? Perhaps, but it isn’t clear that TPP voters would have supported a KMT-TPP ticket. Ko Wen-je’s appeal has been to present himself as an alternative to the two main political parties. Had he stayed in the coalition and taken a backseat to the KMT candidate, his supporters may have simply split their vote between the DPP and KMT-TPP tickets, resulting in the same outcome.
What might a Lai Administration look like? Probably a lot like a third term Tsai Administration (if she weren't term limited).
President Tsai isn't going to disappear.
After 8 years in power, the DPP is now Tsai's DPP. And just like her KMT predecessor, former President Ma Ying-jeou, Tsai will remain engaged and will be an important representative of her Party (and the Taiwanese Government) to the world that is sympathetic to Taiwan. At 67, she likely has years ahead of her.
There are significant frictions between President Tsai and President-elect Lai that go back years, but as we’ve seen during this election, the two leaders are capable of setting those differences aside in order to work together. I predict that pragmatic leadership approach will continue.
From left to right: President Tsai Ing-wen, Vice President-elect Hsiao Bi-khim, and President-elect Lai Ching-te. Screenshot from the Lai campaign commercial, “On the Road” which was released on January 2nd and generated millions of views. Watch the full commercial here with subtitles, it provides an interesting insight into how the DPP portrays this transition from Tsai to Lai leadership.
What will Beijing do? Beijing must respond in a significant way. Of course, the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t have to respond. In any self-reflective political system, leaders might re-examine their approach towards Taiwan and conclude that intimidation, coercion, and threats of military force are counterproductive to the Party’s stated goal of bringing about the “peaceful reunification” of the PRC and Taiwan. But leaders in Beijing aren’t self-reflective and since Beijing has made a ton of threats in the run-up to the election, they are unlikely to backdown after being rebuffed yet again.
We are likely to see an expansion of military threats in both scope and scale: more military exercises, more military ships and planes flying increasing close to Taiwan, more risky behavior on the part of PLA units. We may see the PRC impose some sort of customs control around the island, insisting that ships or planes must go through PRC customs to enter Taiwan. As I’ve predicted before, I suspect the PRC will take military action against the Philippines in and around the BRP Sierra Madre on Second Thomas Shoal (a ‘kill the chicken to scare the monkeys’ tactic).
Beijing is likely to suspend or cancel a good chunk of the ECFA (Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, the trade agreement negotiated between the PRC and Taiwan in 2010 during the KMT Administration of President Ma Ying-jeou). That economic action will hurt Taiwan significantly, but it will likely encourage Taipei to double down on what they have been doing for the last four years: reduce their dependency on the PRC and find other trade partners. A decade ago, or even five years ago, Taiwanese trade diversification would have been a pipedream, but today this effort to diversify away from the PRC is shared by plenty of other players in the global economy and Beijing’s increased military coercion (and relatively poor economic performance) is likely to only accelerate that trend.
None of these reactions should come as a surprise to anyone. Beijing has been making it clear for years that it would respond harshly if the Taiwanese people elected another DPP Administration (some analysts believe the military response to the Speaker Pelosi Visit to Taiwan in August 2022 was simply a dry run of what they were planning for the Spring of 2024 should the election turn out the way it did).
When the Taiwanese people went to the polls on Saturday, they "knew" these retaliations were coming and 40% of them essentially gave Beijing the bird.
That is NOT a good sign for Beijing, and I predict that the Chinese Communist Party will feel it is necessary to take actions to "reestablish deterrence" against Taiwanese independence. Beijing will portray these actions as “defensive,” but any objective observer would view them as aggressive and coercive. Those actions, in turn, will only reinforce in the minds of many Taiwanese that unifying with the PRC is unacceptable.
What does this mean geopolitically? The probability of a war over Taiwan likely increased with this election.
Let me make two important caveats: 1) peace was not guaranteed under a KMT or TPP administration, the vast majority of Taiwanese want to maintain the status quo (which is de facto Taiwanese independence) and don't want the CCP to annex Taiwan (Beijing’s objective); and 2) while I believe the probability of war has increased, I don’t think war is inevitable in the near term.
However, if the Chinese Communist Party sticks to the path it has chosen for achieving what it euphemistically calls "reunification,” the Party will likely conclude now or in the near future, that the only way to achieve its desired outcome is to use military force. I don’t believe that Xi has set a specific date for this or even made the implicit decision to use military force, but the conditions are already set for this to happen and it is unlikely that we would detect that this decision has been made until the military action is underway.
What’s the big take-away? Beijing has backed itself into a corner of its own making.
Some suggest that we should seek to reassure the Chinese Communist Party, so that we can help them out of this problem that they have gotten themselves into.
I think that is the wrong impulse.
The Party must be made aware of the utter failure of their own approach and how their actions have turned the Taiwanese people against them. Entertaining the fantasy of “One China” or helping the CCP save face only perpetuates this crisis. Real friends of the Chinese people should be speaking truth to power: the Party’s obsession with control and desire to be the sole representative of all Chinese people, everywhere, has destroyed any path towards a peaceful union of the PRC with Taiwan. The path that Beijing is on now will lead to war… a devasting war that will engulf the region and likely the world. Allowing Beijing to pretend like this is just a domestic squabble and that everyone else should just mind their own business is a terrible idea that makes this war more, rather than less, likely.
To avoid this war, Beijing must be persuaded to change its approach, remove its military threats, and deal directly with Taiwan’s elected representatives without precondition. That is the only way to achieve lasting peace and stability, and likely the only way that future generations of Taiwanese might contemplate the kind of political union that the CCP desires. This isn’t some tiny faction of “separatists” backed by “hostile foreign forces” and the “black hand” (黑手) of the CIA, as Beijing likes to portray them. The Taiwanese people have gone to the polls multiple times since the advent of democracy in the mid-1990s and have rejected over and over what the CCP has on offer, further and more intense retaliation and coercion isn’t going to change this reality.
On that happy note, thanks as ever for subscribing and reading!
Matt
MUST READ
1. Taiwan Voters Defy Beijing in Electing New President
Joyu Wang, Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2024
Lai Ching-te’s victory will likely maintain the status quo—and the geopolitical tensions—around the island and between Washington and Beijing.
Mark Leonard, Foreign Affairs, January 8, 2024
How Beijing Is Exploiting Israel’s War to Win Over the Global South.
Over the past year, as Western diplomats shuttled frantically from one end of the world to the other in their struggle to contain an ever-growing succession of wars, crises, and other calamities—from Ukraine to Darfur to Nagorno-Karabakh to the Democratic Republic of the Congo—China leaned in to the disorder. Hamas’s October 7 attack and Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip have presented Beijing with yet another crisis to exploit. While the United States discredits itself with the countries of the global South through its seemingly unqualified support for Israel, Beijing has carefully calibrated its response to the war, paying close attention to public opinion in the developing world.
Six months ago, I warned in Foreign Affairs that while the West is seeking to preserve the existing rules-based international order by tweaking some of its elements and inviting in a few additional actors, Chinese strategists are increasingly focused on surviving in a world without order. And they are offering to help other countries build their own sovereignty and freedom of maneuver as Western dominance recedes.
Since Hamas’s brutal attack, the Biden administration has tried to reconcile public support for Israel with private pressure to more carefully target its attacks in Gaza and to be more open to a political settlement with the Palestinians. Beijing, on the other hand, has been much less constrained by the need for balance. By calling for a two-state solution, refusing to condemn Hamas, and making symbolic efforts to support a cease-fire, it has taken advantage of global anti-Israeli sentiment in a bid to elevate its own standing in the global South. In its painstaking attempts to mirror global public opinion as closely as possible, China is following a broader strategy: embracing the global conflagrations that so bedevil Western policymakers.
COMMENT – I don’t agree with Mark on all of this (for example, Beijing isn’t just “taking advantage of global anti-Israel sentiment,” Beijing is a primary amplifier of anti-Israel sentiment), but his main point is right: Beijing is seeking to exploit and thrive in a world without order.
3. China and the Houthis: Sounds of Silence
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While attacks by the Houthis on Israel and civilian shipping in the Red Sea and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait continue to mark the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, China has been virtually silent, with no significant condemnation, and certainly no concrete action. China has also refrained from joining the US-initiated task force to protect navigation in the region, and its warships have failed to respond to distress calls from attacked ships.
Beijing’s global pretensions collide with a low glass ceiling whenever they require any substantive activity or detract from its efforts to undermine Washington’s standing in the Middle East. Even when entities threatening regional stability have a negative impact on China’s interests, its diplomatic and military influence falls short of its rhetoric. For Israel, the limits of China’s “friendship” and the constraints affecting its relations with Jerusalem are clear.
4. Xi, Biden and the $10 Trillion Cost of War Over Taiwan
Jennifer Welch, Jenny Leonard, Maeva Cousin, Gerard DiPippo, and Tom Orlik, Bloomberg, January 8, 2024
War over Taiwan would have a cost in blood and treasure so vast that even those unhappiest with the status quo have reason not to risk it. Bloomberg Economics estimate the price tag at around $10 trillion, equal to about 10% of global GDP — dwarfing the blow from the war in Ukraine, Covid pandemic and Global Financial Crisis.
China’s rising economic and military heft, Taiwan’s burgeoning sense of national identity, and fractious relations between Beijing and Washington mean the conditions for a crisis are in place. With cross-Strait relations on the ballot, Taiwan’s Jan. 13 election is a potential flashpoint.
5. Taiwan election: China sows doubt about US with disinformation
Tessa Wong, BBC, January 8, 2024
The rumour was old, but effective: the Taiwanese were being fed "poisonous" pork imported from the US.
The weeks-old claim followed another: the Taiwanese government was secretly harvesting blood from citizens and giving it to the US to make a bioweapon to attack China.
Both were swiftly debunked.
But this is a narrative that has been blooming in Taiwan ahead of Saturday's presidential and legislative elections.
"Yimeilun" or US scepticism, questions the faithfulness of Taiwan's biggest ally, portraying the island as a pawn exploited by America. Its ultimate goal, say analysts, is to drive a wedge between Taiwan and the US - and push the Taiwanese into the welcoming arms of China.
"There seems to be this narrative that the US will not support Taiwan, or will abandon it if there's a war, or the situation is not advantageous to the US," said Kuang-shun Yang, a disinformation researcher who coined the term in 2018.
Disinformation experts say China has a hand in spreading this message, and may even be creating it. Their evidence also points to Taiwanese close to Beijing.
It's not always conspiracy theories - most of the time it's a highlighting of news that shows the US in a bad light, or points to it as an untrustworthy superpower.
"For China, this is a battle for public opinion," said Puma Shen, a Taiwanese expert in Chinese disinformation and Democratic Progressive Party's legislature nominee.
"To persuade everyone that China is the better country is more difficult, but to persuade everyone that America is problematic is relatively easier… to China that would be considered a success."
6. China Doesn’t Want You to Say ‘Tibet’ Anymore
Chun Han Wong, Wall Street Journal, January 6, 2024
Yearslong shift toward the Chinese name ‘Xizang’ is accelerating as Beijing prepares for Dalai Lama succession battle.
Tibet is no longer “Tibet,” not in China anyway.
Chinese officials are increasingly using the term “Xizang,” the official English spelling of the name that China’s ethnic Han majority applies to the Tibetan homeland on the country’s far western frontier.
The shift dovetails with a broad assimilation drive targeted at China’s ethnic minorities and outlying regions that has intensified under Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who has sought to forge a singular national identity—one centered on the Han majority and loyalty to the Communist Party.
Amid these efforts, Beijing has also been stepping up preparations for a fight over the choice of successor to the current Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people, who turns 89 in July. China’s officially atheist leadership has denounced him as a separatist, and insisted that they get to choose the next incarnation of the Dalai Lama.
For decades, Chinese officials and state media typically referred to “Tibet” in English-language communications, applying a name widely used across the West. That began to change in recent years, as China’s Foreign Ministry and a nationalistic party tabloid switched to using “Xizang,” the standard Romanization of the region’s Mandarin Chinese name that is pronounced, roughly, “shee-ZAHNG.”
Beijing has stepped up its usage of the “Xizang” label in recent months. At an academic seminar in August, Chinese scholars advocated replacing English references to “Tibet” with “Xizang,” a view that the party agency handling ethnic affairs promoted on social media. Two months later, the Chinese government arranged a diplomatic conference in the Tibetan city of Nyingchi, titled “Xizang Trans-Himalayan Forum for International Cooperation,” where Tibet was generally referred to as “Xizang” in English.
Major state-media outlets, such as the Xinhua News Agency, increasingly referred to “Xizang” in English-language reports.
COMMENT – Similar to Communist Party efforts with ethnic Uyghurs, Mongolians, and Manchus, Beijing is seeking to erase Tibetan identity.
This article helps highlight how Beijing views “discourse power” and its worth revisiting MERICS’ excellent piece in September “Image control: How China struggles for discourse power.”
7. China’s advanced machine tool exports to Russia soar after Ukraine invasion
Joe Leahy, Chris Cook, Max Seddon, and Max Harlow, Financial Times, January 1, 2024
COMMENT – Yet another piece of evidence that Beijing is actively supporting Moscow’s efforts to expand the Russian military industrial base.
Authoritarianism
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Bloomberg, January 9, 2024
9. China forensic firm cracks Apple’s AirDrop to help Beijing police track senders
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10. Xi Vows ‘No Mercy’ as He Deepens Graft Fight in Key Sectors
Bloomberg, January 8, 2024
11. China Says It Has Detained a Spy Working for the U.K.
Liza Lin, Wall Street Journal, January 8, 2024
China has taken into custody an alleged British spy, the country’s national security agency said Monday, as Beijing steps up warnings over national security and the infiltration of foreign spies in the country.
In a social-media post, China’s Ministry of State Security alleged that MI6, the U.K. foreign-intelligence service, in 2015 recruited a “third country” national surnamed Huang and provided both training and “specialized spy equipment for intelligence liaisons.”
According to the MSS, the British instructed Huang to enter China as a representative of a consulting agency and send back intelligence. The Chinese agency didn’t specify Huang’s nationality or name the consulting firm.
The episode is the latest chapter in ramped-up tensions between the two nations, which have plunged what was once a warm relationship into a deep freeze. Britain has spent the past five years trying to untangle deep commercial relations with China while warning that the Chinese Communist Party is a growing threat to global security.
The story topped the list of hot topics on China’s popular Weibo social-media site early Monday, racking up about 140 million views over the day.
Monday’s allegation is part of a recent burst of publicity around foreign espionage cases on the part of the previously tight-lipped MSS, which opened its first official social-media account on WeChat in July. In recent days, the agency has used the account to publicize allegations that foreign forces are exploiting Chinese aviation enthusiasts to collect sensitive flight data and to launch a comic strip based on real-life counterespionage cases.
COMMENT – The CCP’s obsession with foreign infiltration is going to make any efforts at increasing people-to-people ties much more difficult. Under these circumstances, it would be very dangerous for any foreigner to spend time in the PRC and equally dangerous for Chinese citizens to associate themselves closely with them.
12. Xi’s Solution for China’s Economy Risks Triggering New Trade War
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13. Wall Street’s Ambitions in China Run into a Rising Firewall
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One of Wall Street’s biggest banks stopped briefing the head of its subsidiary in mainland China on sensitive company strategy, so the government can’t eavesdrop or demand details later.
At nearby outposts for other US and European banks, executives are spending tens of millions of dollars to locally house financial data and set up on-site internal controls. Some units are even looking at reshaping balance sheets to stand separate from parent companies.
COMMENT – This will drive decoupling more than actions by Washington, Tokyo, or Brussels.
14. European Union keeps a wary eye on China as it plans tech spending
Eva Dou, Washington Post, January 6, 2024
15. Microsoft Debates What to Do with A.I. Lab in China
Karen Weise, Cade Metz, and David McCabe, New York Times, January 10, 2024
16. How to Stop Our High-Tech Equipment from Arming Russia and China
Chris Miller and Jordan Schneider, Center for a New American Security, December 29, 2023
The U.S. government’s efforts to stop Russia and China from using American equipment to boost their defense sectors have resulted in tough rules — but leaky enforcement. As a result, American-made tools keep turning up in Russian missile factories and in Huawei’s supply chain. With war in Europe and China threatening its neighbors, that’s just not good enough.
The United States and its allies make the most advanced tools for both precision metalworking and semiconductor manufacturing. With international tensions rising, the United States and its allies have been right to try to prohibit adversaries from using these tools to manufacture weapons that undermine America’s military edge. In October 2022, the United States imposed restrictions on American firms selling and servicing equipment to manufacture chips below the 14-nanometer level, which covers chips necessary for building supercomputers and training frontier artificial intelligence models, aiming to limit China’s access to the chip technology used to train A.I. systems for military use. And when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the United States and its allies tightened sales of cutting-edge machine tools to Russia to prevent them from being used for military purposes.
Environmental Harms
17. Australia funds rare earth research as West seeks China alternatives
Shaun Turton, Nikkei Asia, January 8, 2024
Australia's government will funnel 22 million Australian dollars ($14 million) into rare earth and critical mineral research as it endeavors to be a "global clean energy supplier," its resource minister said on Monday.
"The path to net zero by 2050 runs through Australia's resources sector," Madeleine King said. "The new research will help Australia further develop critical minerals and rare earths processes, and encourage downstream processing to produce components for clean technologies."
COMMENT – The Australians are pushing hard to solve the problems of critical mineral dependencies on the PRC.
18. The U.S. Races China and Russia to Mine the Ocean for Battery Metals
Steve LeVine, Information, January 8, 2024
Foreign Interference and Coercion
19. The Issue Is Not Unification, but Forced Unification
Da-Wun Sie and Yu-Fen Lai, Friedrich Naumann Foundation, December 2023
When it comes to political parties in Taiwan, one of the biggest misconceptions is that the KMT is pro-China and therefore pro-unification, whereas the DPP is anti-China and therefore pro-independence. That is at best an oversimplification and at worst a complete distortion.
Taiwan’s politics is decidedly not sectarian. Since the dawn of democracy in Taiwan, there has simply been no support for an annexation, or what Beijing calls “re-unification.” Even back in 1996, when Taiwan held its first democratic presidential election, support for immediate unification was less than 3%. Even when combined with those who favored “move toward unification in the future”, support for unification still did not exceed one quarter of respondents. Later, support for unification dwindled even further. Latest polling shows that support for immediate unification stands at only 1.6%, whereas support for moving toward unification in the future also only amounts to a meager 5.8% (see Fig. 1, courtesy of the Election Study Center at NCCU).
This explains why even Ma, arguably the most pro-China president ever, had reiterated his opposition to unification during his tenure – “No unification, no independence, no war”, so went his slogan. Indeed, no politician running for national office would ever dare to explicitly endorse PRC rule. As recently as in October 2023, the Deputy Chairman of the KMT publicly proclaimed that his party was “not pro-China and not pro-unification.” Simply put, there has simply never been any appetite amongst the electorate for being annexed by Beijing.
COMMENT – A helpful primer on the recent Taiwanese election.
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Reuters, January 7, 2024
21. Taiwan presidential candidate accuses China of election interference
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22. Taiwan's choice: Focal points of the presidential election
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23. How TikTok fakes pushed Russian lies to millions
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24. China’s Xi Jinping pushes for stable US ties and more exchanges in letter to long-time American friend
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25. China calls for peaceful coexistence and promises pandas on the 45th anniversary of U.S.-China ties
Ken Moritsugu, Associated Press, January 5, 2024
26. Canadian cabinet minister allegedly received election backing from Communist China in 2019: report
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27. Maldives president meets Xi, woos Chinese tourists amid India spat
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28. Maldives president courts investors in China as Indian ties sag
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Human Rights and Religious Persecution
29. Sunak Condemns Hong Kong’s Trial of Free Speech ‘Champion’
Rebecca Choong Wilkins, Bloomberg, January 10, 2024
30. Uyghur Students Targeted in PRC Police "Anti-Terrorism" Project
IPVM Team, IPVM, December 18, 2023
Uyghur students are being explicitly targeted as part of a wide-ranging "anti-terrorism" project in a major PRC city.
This confirms PRC discrimination against Uyghur students, with Hikvision separately winning a 'Smart Campus' deal requiring Ramadan warnings for minorities.
Uyghurs are often treated as "terrorists" by PRC policing systems with e.g. Dahua tracking "Uyghurs with hidden terrorist intentions".
In this post, IPVM examines this project and what it shows.
Executive Summary
A Hangzhou police project tracks "Uyghur university students" to "predict and control" people "related to terrorism", automatically alerting police of any "abnormal behaviors".
Behaviors considered "abnormal" include certain types of purchases, VPN usage, online communications, and even gathering at unspecified religious centers.
The system is aimed at securing Hangzhou and the 2023 Asian Games held there this fall. Four PRC integrators competed over the tender.
Hangzhou is a huge city of 11m people and is the headquarters of Alibaba, Hikvision, Dahua, and Uniview, although none of those companies were involved in this deal.
31. Taiwan’s Yiguandao Believers Arrested as “Cultists” when Visiting China
Zhao Zhangyong, Bitter Winter, January 5, 2024
Industrial Policies and Economic Espionage
32. Ships Advertise Chinese Links to Avoid Houthi Attack in Red Sea
Alex Longley, Bloomberg, January 11, 2024
33. China extends lead in lidar tech crucial to self-driving cars
Naoshige Shimizu, Nikkei Asia, January 8, 2024
34. Xi Jinping risks setting off another trade war
The Economist, January 09, 2024
35. Taiwan's export reliance on Chinese market falls to 21-year low
Hideaki Ryugen, Nikkei Asia, January 10, 2024
Taiwan's exports to China accounted for 35.25% of the total in 2023, the lowest share in 21 years, reflecting the mainland's economic slowdown and robust artificial intelligence-related exports to the U.S. and Europe.
Taiwan's total exports decreased 9.8% in 2023 to $432.5 billion, the Finance Ministry said Tuesday.
COMMENT – Businesses and markets are anticipating even greater Cross Strait frictions.
36. China’s EV-Market Boom Is Set to Slow for a Second Year
Linda Lew, Bloomberg, January 9, 2024
37. Chinese liquor probe escalates trade tensions with Brussels
Koen Verhelst, Antonia Zimmermann, and Camille Gijs, Politico, January 5, 2024
38. Cognac Sets the EV Trade War Alight
Stephen Wilmot, Wall Street Journal, January 5, 2024
39. Chinese Company That Sparked Fears of Financial Contagion Falls into Bankruptcy
Cao Li, Wall Street Journal, January 5, 2024
40. ‘Derisking’ China-Reliant Supply Chains Is Creating New Risks
Nathaniel Taplin, Wall Street Journal, January 6, 2024
41. Commerce Department Finds Dumping of Tin Mill Product Imports from China, Other Countries
Denny Jacob, Wall Street Journal, January 5, 2024
42. China Becomes the World’s Biggest Auto Exporter—With Help from Russia
Selina Cheng, Wall Street Journal, January 9, 2024
43. America Had ‘Quiet Quitting.’ In China, Young People Are ‘Letting It Rot.’
Shen Lu, Wall Street Journal, December 18, 2023
44. Lawmakers Push U.S. to Consider Trade Limits with A.I. Giant Tied to China
Edward Wong, Mark Mazzetti, and Paul Mozur, New York Times, January 9, 2024
45. Volkswagen fails to win ground in China
Edward White and Patricia Nilsson, Financial Times, January 9, 2024
46. China Startup Deals Plumb Four-Year Low Despite Mega Chip Deals
Jane Zhang, Bloomberg, January 10, 2024
Cyber & Information Technology
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Xinmei Shen, South China Morning Post, January 5, 2024
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Iris Deng, South China Morning Post, January 10, 2024
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Manya Koetse, The Guardian, January 9, 2024
50. Biden Urged to Curb China’s Dominance of Older-Generation Chips
Asa Fitch, Wall Street Journal, January 8, 2024
51. Chinese companies resort to repurposing Nvidia gaming chips for AI
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Military and Security Threats
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54. China honours ‘role model’ destroyer that ‘fended off foreign provocation’
Cyril Ip, South China Morning Post, January 8, 2024
China’s Communist Party has honoured one of its most advanced guided-missile destroyers as a “role model of the times” for a series of missions, including an incident where it “fended off foreign military provocation” during a combat drill.
The People’s Liberation Army Type 055 destroyer, which was commissioned in 2020, was given the title on Sunday by the Communist Party Central Committee’s Publicity Department, according to state news agency Xinhua.
The ship is part of the strike group led by the country’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning.
In a training mission with the Liaoning, the Nanchang consecutively maintained combat status for more than 20 days and fended off foreign military provocations head-on, the report said.
During a training exercise in the western Pacific in 2022, the Nanchang was ordered to sail out to face directly a carrier formation from an unnamed foreign country, according to the state broadcaster CCTV.
It was the first time the destroyer had encountered such a formation and “in the face of long-time, high-intensity harassment”, it “expanded the depth of defence, ensured the space for manoeuvre and effectively fulfilled the sacred duty of guarding the carrier formation”, CCTV said.
“When the foreign military aircraft gradually made approaches, our early warning and detection systems tracked and locked on them through their entire courses. We firmly and strongly fended off foreign military provocations,” Zhou Yinlong, a crew member, told the broadcaster.
COMMENT – As the US Navy and Royal Navy are defending commercial shipping in the Red Sea, the PLA feels it necessary to show it is doing something too.
55. From Lebanon to the Red Sea, a Broader Conflict with Iran Looms
David E. Sanger and Steven Erlanger, New York Times, January 7, 2024
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Yukio Tajima and Satoshi Iwaki, Nikkei Asia, January 9, 2024
57. China is trying to sell its ‘chubby girl’ transport plane to foreign buyers
Liu Zhen, South China Morning Post, January 10, 2024
58. US Intelligence Shows Flawed China Missiles Led Xi to Purge Army
Peter Martin and Jennifer Jacobs, Bloomberg, January 6, 2024
59. China to launch 26,000 satellites, vying with U.S. for space power
Shunsuke Tabeta, Nikkei Asia, January 10, 2024
China will start building this year its own version of StarLink, a satellite internet constellation using low Earth orbit, with plans of launching some 26,000 satellites to cover the entire world led by state-run companies.
Now that the military use of satellite-based communications systems for warfare in such places as Ukraine and Gaza is increasing, China will set up its own satellite network to compete with the U.S. as a "space power."
COMMENT – Significant if Beijing can do it.
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Elizabeth Green, Prospect, December 6, 2023
61. Experts See a Message in Chinese Balloons Flying Over Taiwan
Chris Buckley and Amy Chang Chien, New York Times, January 4, 2024
62. Washington Heats Up Nuclear Energy Competition with Russia, China
William Mauldin and Jennifer Hiller, Wall Street Journal, January 6, 2024
63. China Launches Satellite, Setting Off Alerts Across Taiwan
Jonathan Cheng and Joyu Wang, Wall Street Journal, January 9, 2024
64. U.S. Navy Officer Who Helped China Is Sentenced to 2 Years
Mike Ives, New York Times, January 9, 2024
65. US and Chinese military officials hold first talks since 2021
Demetri Sevastopulo, Financial Times, January 9, 2024
One Belt, One Road Strategy
66. China’s Xi Elevates Diplomatic Ties with Record Number of Nations to Counter US
Bloomberg, January 9, 2024
Opinion Pieces
67. Chairman Mike
Brent Crane, The Wire China, January 8, 2024
68. What China may have learned from Pearl Harbor
Samantha Ravich and Mark Montgomery, Washington Examiner, January 2, 2024
69. Huawei is back, and the need to keep it out of 5G networks is greater than ever
David Wilezol, The Hill, January 3, 2024
70. The Dirty Secret Behind China's Clean Energy Facade
Akram Keram, Newsweek, November 30, 2023
The United States and China issued a joint statement on climate crisis cooperation prior to the APEC summit last month, underscoring the importance of the topic. Leaders around the world who are concerned with climate change need to understand that the climate crisis is a human rights crisis, and it is more so when it includes China. While it is undeniable that China is the world's largest producer of renewable energy, dominating solar and wind technology, China's solar panels, electric vehicle (EV) batteries are made by forced labor. China's gross human rights violations should be addressed strongly at this week's World Climate Action Summit – COP 28, including Uyghur forced labor issues, still ongoing across China.
Advancing democracy and freedom and human rights around the globe is central to American diplomacy and foreign policy, and it is one of the seven pillars of Biden's foreign policy as well. Responsibility for addressing forced labor issues applies to national leaders, state governors, and other executive stakeholders because America has passed a specific law on China's forced labor practices. However, a look at the itinerary of California Governor Gavin Newsom's (D-CA) climate-focused visit to China reveals links to forced labor, despite his claims to have raised and discussed "human rights issues including . . . Xinjiang" with his Chinese counterparts during the trip.
71. Russia, China, and the Threat to the North Pole
Mark Green, Wall Street Journal, January 5, 2024
72. Big shift in China policy unlikely whoever wins Taiwan election
John Fuh-sheng Hsieh, Nikkei Asia, January 8, 2024
73. Job stability and security are what Chinese youth want now
Yingyi Ma, Nikkei Asia, January 9, 2024
74. Rise of admirals shows Xi's focus on patriotic professionalism
Alessio Patalano, Nikkei Asia, January 10, 2024
75. PODCAST – Why India cares about China-Russia relations
Nivedita Kapoor and Tanvi Madan, Brookings, January 10, 2024
76. Chinese Weakness Shouldn't Determine U.S. Policy
Ali Wyne, Foreign Policy, January 9, 2024