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Tibetan Student Organization at Columbia Received Warning Letter from China; China Even Destroyed Posters

Columbia University recently saw the launch of Students for a Free Tibet at Columbia University, its first Tibetan student organization and an offshoot of the international organization Students for a Free Tibet (SFT). The association hopes to provide a platform for the students to communicate and engage in activities in solidarity with the people of Tibet who are under the oppressive rule of the Chinese Communist Party.

The organization has put up posters in several academic buildings, inviting students interested in Sino-Tibetan studies and Sino-Tibetan relations to learn about Tibetan culture and participate in campus activities. Examples include such as topics as Tibetan food, movies, and cultural festivals.

On Wednesday September 21, a number of SFT posters “disappeared.” In their place someone scrawled the words “Tibet is an inseparable part of the People’s Republic of China.”

A letter in Chinese appeared next to a poster at Columbia’s School of International Public Affairs (SIPA), warning students that, as Chinese, they should not tolerate but should back down from this “separatist act” and should not be silent or appeased. The letter also stated that SIPA adheres to the spirit of the UN, that the United States does not recognize Tibetan independence, and that students were urged  to say no to “separatist forces” and to protect their own country.

Sveta Li, one of the founders of SFT Columbia, suspected that the Chinese embassy was behind the incident and that the Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) played the role of collecting information from the campus and reporting to the Chinese Embassy.

Li said, “Maybe there are individual students who are spontaneously patriotic, but I think it is more organized.  . . . The Chinese Consulate will certainly not see the emergence of a ‘Tibetan independence’ organization at such an American university.  . . . The Chinese Students and Scholars Association is funded by the Chinese Consulate, and this is a Chinese Communist spy organization.”

In 2017 when the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) invited the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetans, to speak at its graduation ceremony, the Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) organized a protest. At a memorial event of the Tiananmen Massacre on June 4 this year, also at UCSD, Chinese students violently tore down posters and sabotaged candles on campus.

Source: Radio Free Asia, September 23, 2022
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/us-poster-09232022114430.html

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

Over 5 Million Chinese Students Will Apply for Graduate Programs

As China’s enrollment examination for a 2023 Master’s degree has just opened for registration, it is estimated that the number of applicants will approximate or even exceed 5.2 million. Due to the Covid-19 epidemic and economic slowdown, many college graduates are considering further education as an escape from the tough job market.

Chinese students take a nationwide enrollment examination so as to apply for the Master’s program. Last year, the number of applicants for the 2022 Master’s program was 4.57 million. Li Lin, the director of the graduate programs at the New Oriental Education & Technology Group, a provider of private educational services in China, recently said that, out of the 5.2 million applicants, 1.3 million will be admitted. The number of applicants for the 2017 Master’s program was only 2 million.

According to the Ministry of Education, this year, the number of fresh graduates from China’s colleges and universities set a record, reaching 10.76 million. It is the first time that the number has exceeded 10 million.

Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), September 25, 2022
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202209250088.aspx

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Cooperation between China and Mexico

According to the Mexico News newspaper, China’s investment in Mexico has continued to grow, while Chinese companies engaged in exporting to the United States are also showing interest in Mexico. Last year, China invested a record of almost $500 million in Mexico, compared to less than $300 million in 2020 and less than $200 million in 2019. Within two years, “Hofusan Industrial Park,” the first industrial park built by the Chinese in North America, expects to have 35 companies from China. In a recent report, Bloomberg noted that the industrial park has become a haven for China to bypass U.S. tariffs and restart supply chains in the wake of the epidemic. In this way, it takes advantage of the tax exemptions between Mexico and the United States under the framework of the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA).

Victor Jeifets, a professor at St. Petersburg State University, told Sputnik News: “The Americans have leverage on Mexico, which is very interested in the U.S. market. At the moment, with the growth of Chinese companies’ influence there, the United States will not go down the road of intensifying conflict with Mexico. The United States needs allies when dealing with China-related issues, and will not take the risk of forcing Mexico to make a choice. Therefore, if the cooperation between China and Mexico does not undermine the USMCA, the United States will not set up obstacles.”

According to Mexican media reports, some new Sino-Mexican cooperation projects have been announced. They include a $1 billion investment over four years by Chinese solar panel maker Solarever Group in a Chinese-owned automotive battery plant in Jalisco. China’s Lingong Machinery Group announced plans to build a $140 million manufacturing plant in Nuevo León, on Mexico’s northern border.

Source: Sputnik News (Russia), September 24, 2022
https://sputniknews.cn/20220924/1044226872.html

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

China’s Local Government Debt Issuance Up 24 Percent in the First 8 Months

According to the Choice database of East Money Information, a Chinese financial and stock information provider, the scale of total local government debt issuance in the first eight months of this year reached 6.05 trillion yuan ($870 billion), an increase of 24 percent year-on-year. Among them, the newly issued local debts issued were 4,021 billion yuan, up 62.4 percent year-on-year. Of the new local debts, 3,519.1 billion yuan ($505 billion) were  specifically for special bonds.

There were three small and medium-sized bank special bonds, one important type of special bonds, with a total amount of 48.5 billion yuan ($7.0 billion), including 5 billion yuan ($0.72 billion) by the Dalian city government, 30 billion yuan ($4.3 billion) by Gansu, and 13.5 billion yuan ($1.9 billion) by Liaoning.

The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) said that it has worked with the Ministry of Finance and the central bank – the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) – to accelerate the issuance of special bonds by local governments to supplement the capital of small and medium-sized banks. In the first half of this year, CBIRC allocated 103 billion yuan ($17.5 billion) of special debt quota to Liaoning province, Gansu province, Henan province, and Dalian city.

Source: Sina.com, September 2, 2022
https://finance.sina.com.cn/roll/2022-09-02/doc-imizmscv8739259.shtml

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

626 Million Surveillance Cameras Are All over China: 432.2 surveillance cameras per 1,000 people

According to a 2019 projection by IHS Markit, a leading information analysis firm, 54 percent, or 540 million, of the more than 1 billion surveillance cameras deployed around the world by the end of 2021 are or will be deployed in China. In fact, this is a low estimate. The latest statistics and estimates put the number of public surveillance cameras across China at 626 million.

A study published by the information research firm Comparitech on July 11, 2022 analyzed that if one takes the lower estimate, which is 540 million surveillance cameras deployed in China, there is an average of 372.8 surveillance cameras per 1,000 people; if adopting the higher estimate, 626 million surveillance cameras, that translates into an average of 432.2 surveillance cameras per 1,000 people. By either figure, the ratio exceeds that of the other most populous cities in the world by hundreds of times.

For example, in the world’s largest city, Tokyo, the capital of Japan, there is an average of only 1.06 surveillance cameras per 1,000 people; the fifth largest city, Mexico City, Mexico, has an average of only 3.62 surveillance cameras per 1,000 people. New York, the largest city in the United States has an average of 6.87 surveillance cameras per 1,000 people. The second largest city, Los Angeles, has an average of 8.77 surveillance cameras per 1,000 people.

Among the hundreds of millions of surveillance cameras installed in China, more than 200 million surveillance cameras are controlled by the Chinese police force’s ‘Skynet’ surveillance system. It spreads across commercial and residential areas and highways. The ratio is almost one surveillance camera for every two Chinese people.

Source: Voice of America, August 26, 2022
https://www.voachinese.com/a/ai-technology-has-become-an-effective-tool-for-china-s-control-over-its-citizens-20220826/6718069.html

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

China Has Collected Millions of DNA Samples in Tibet

According to a Citizen Lab, which is affiliated with the University of Toronto, China’s police have conducted a mass DNA collection program in Tibet. It is estimate that between June 2016 and July 2022, police have collected DNA samples from between 1/4 to 1/3 of Tibet’s total population, targeting men, women and children and even including Buddhist monks.

In early September, a report released by Human Rights Watch disclosed that Chinese police had collected DNA from people in Tibet in at least 14 locations. Procurement documents on the Chinese government’s official website show that the Tibetan police authorities conducted a public tender for “DNA database construction” back in July 2019, with a budget of RMB 10 million ($1.43 million).

Chinese authorities have justified mass DNA collection as a tool to fight crime, find missing people, and ensure social stability. There have been media reports on a mass DNA collection campaign in the Xinjiang area and a police-led national program of male DNA collection. Since the Y chromosome in males is rarely mutated during genetic transmission, having the Y chromosome DNA data of a male is equivalent to having the data of multiple generations of paternal members of his family. While in other countries this collection is primarily used to assist in criminal investigations, China has been collecting samples of male DNA on a large scale.

Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), September 15, 2022
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202209150352.aspx

Briefings | | |   Social Stability

“Free Xinjiang” Blocked on Reddit – Netizens Criticize Tencent’s Possible Infiltration

A group of netizens set up a Chinese version of “Free XinJiang” on an American social media site, Reddit, to provide a platform for Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims and supporters to communicate in Chinese, and to upload reports and information on the Chinese Communist authorities human rights violations in XinJiang.

However, just within the first 23 hours after its creation, Reddit received a large number of malicious complaints that had been filed against this information on the Chinese Communist authorities’ human rights violations.

Tony, the administrator of the “Free Xinjiang” section, suspected that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), through its online army consisting of fifty-centers, had made these illegal “posts” and then filed these “complaints,” thereby triggering the shutdown of the channel. He also suspected that that since Reddit had been taking investments from Tencent since 2019, it had become an accomplice of the Chinese Communist Party.

In February 2019, Reddit announced that it had raised $300 million in Series D funding, half of which came from Tencent, the top Chinese internet company. In 2020, Tencent participated in Reddit’s Series E round of funding again.

Source: Radio Free Asia, September 5, 2022
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/reddit-09052022123021.html

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

By 2027, China Faces Having a Shortage of Network Security Personnel of 3.27 million

China’s Ministry of Education recently issued a “White Paper on the Real-World Capabilities of Cybersecurity Talent,” The White Paper states that 34 universities in the country already have academic programs of cyberspace security in place. Still, by 2027, China will see a shortage of 3.27 million cyber security personnel, At that time, the annual production of college educated talent in this field is estimated to be only 30,000.

According to mainland Chinese media, the areas of high demand include the ability to conduct real-time attack and defense, to identify vulnerabilities, and to fill the needs of engineering and development.

A scholar at the Steering Committee of Cyberspace Security in Higher Education under the Ministry of Education said, “When we are attacked with the backing of a nation’s power, should we fight back? We should do what we should do as the government allows. From the perspective of talent training, at least we should do both the shield and the spear. We can only really safeguard our national security if we do a good job of both the spear and the shield.”

Source: China Central Television, September 7, 2022
https://news.cctv.com/2022/09/07/ARTIZbES3G0QfcMBN6W1UwyU220907.shtml

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology