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A Quarter of Japanese Companies Consider Reducing or Withdrawing Investments from Hong Kong

Between July 2 and 9, the Consulate General of Japan in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong office of the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) and the Hong Kong Japanese Chamber of Commerce conducted a survey on the business environment in Hong Kong among more than 600 Japanese-owned companies and local catering companies operated by Japanese. The results showed that 56.5 percent of the respondents were “very worried” or “worried” about the implementation of the Hong Kong National Security Law. This represented an increase of 5.7 percentage points up from the previous survey in April.

When asked about the reasons for worrying about the national security law, most companies, (as high as 79.4 percent of them), expressed their worries about the “restricted information flow,” a surge of 13.8 percentage points from the last survey. 60 percent worried about “Hong Kong losing its ‘rule of law’ and ‘judicial independence,'” and 58.1 percent worried about “brain drain.” The rest of the reasons include “increased intervention from the Chinese government and a weakening of Hong Kong’s autonomy,” the “instability of Hong Kong society,” and the “ambiguous enforcement of the National Security Law.”

Although more than 60 percent of Japanese companies in Hong Kong believe “no change” in the current business environment compared to a year ago, many companies said that one year after the implementation of the national security law, some employees left Hong Kong with their children, some local distributors moved overseas, and 25.5 percent of the companies are considering reducing or withdrawing their investments from Hong Kong.

The survey also asked about the views of the those from the headquarters of Japanese companies in Hong Kong. 31.8 percent of the respondents gave a “pessimistic” answer. Many of them blamed the Japanese news reporting on Hong Kong. 46 percent of the companies said that the headquarters “urged them to reduce the size of their Hong Kong operations.”

Source: Radio Free Asia, July 267, 2021
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/jingmao/ac-07272021044949.html

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

13.7 million Chinese Sign Petition to Investigate U.S. Lab

The Chinese official media Global Times recently launched an online petition urging the international community to investigate whether the U.S. military’s Fort Detrick Biological Laboratory was the origin of the new coronavirus.

As of July 26, the petition was alive and the number of signatures has been growing over time. The signatories below the signature counter did not post any name, but simply stated that a “netizen” from somewhere in China had participated. The increase in the number of signatures is considerable. According to Global Times, the signatures began on July 17 and by July 22 more than 5 million people had signed. Just one day later, by midnight Beijing time on July 23, the number of signatures jumped to more than 9.4 million. By July 26, the number was over 13.7 million.

The petition is in response to an open letter allegedly signed by Chinese netizens in early June of this year calling for a WHO investigation into the U.S. Fort Detrick Biological Laboratory.

The letter claimed that the U.S. military’s Fort Detrick Biological Laboratory had a leak in the fall of 2019 on the eve of the Covid-19 outbreak, and that the U.S. side covered up the details in the interest of national security. This has led to concerns about whether the event was related to the coronavirus and to calls for a WHO investigation.

In fact, Fort Detrick has been a thorn in the side of Chinese officials since March of last year. Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai said last March that the notion that the virus came from a U.S. lab was crazy. However, according to the website of Foreign Policy magazine, from early March last year until now, Chinese officials and state media have mentioned the Fort Detrick lab more than four hundred times in articles, videos, tweets and press conferences and have repeatedly asked the lab to open up for China to send its staff to investigate.

The narrative linking Fort Detrick to the coronavirus in these conversations is that U.S. Army soldier Maatje Benassi brought the virus from the Fort Detrick to Wuhan in October 2019 while he was there for the World Military Games.

Richard H. Ebright, professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University, denounced this claim as utter nonsense, telling Radio Free Asia that the analysis of the genome sequence of the coronavirus extracted from humans indicates that this virus infected human bodies in or near Wuhan sometime around September to November 2019.

According to public information, the Fort Detrick Biological Laboratory, which is part of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), did receive a directive from the Centers for Disease Control to close in 2019. The New York Times reported that a USAMRIID spokesperson said at the time that the closure was primarily due to a lack of proper disinfection of the lab, but that there was no threat that would endanger public safety, nor was there any leakage of hazardous materials that would cause injury to anyone.

Source: Radio Free Asia, July 22, 2021
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/huanjing/wy-07222021111401.html

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

Local Chinese Block Western Journalist from Reporting on Zhengzhou

In flood-stricken Zhengzhou City in central China, not only local Chinese journalists, but foreign reporters, including  those from Taiwan and Hong Kong, have been covering the story. However, a Twitter video shows that some “patriotic people” in the city have been interfering with the reporting of a Western journalist.

These people surrounded the journalist and accused the journalist of “demonizing China” and of “selective reporting.” They even demanded to see the footage.

At the same time, according to online information, the number of missing people in Henan province has reached 130. Their friends and relatives have posted photos of the missing and described their appearance and body features. Most of the missing are residents of Zhengzhou.

The military has now taken over the Jingguang Road Tunnel, where hundreds of cars were trapped in the flood. People are prohibited from approaching the site and also from taking photos. Those who sought to find the whereabouts of their loved ones who were supposedly trapped in the tunnel have also been held back.

Although the official figure is that only four people were killed in the tunnel, netizens have widely questioned the number. Cyber authorities have deleted some of the online posts that questioned the number.

Source: Twitter, July 25, 2021


Radio Free Asia, July 25, 2021
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/Xinwen/7-07252021144949.html

Briefings | | |   Social Stability

Chinese Foreign Minister’s Criticism of U.S. before Meeting with Wendy Sherman

Days before meeting with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi repeatedly named and criticized the United States.

“The U.S. has always wanted to use its strength to exert pressure on other countries, conveying the idea that it is superior. But I want to tell the U.S. side clearly that there has never been any superior country in this world, nor should there be a superior country. China will not accept any country claiming to be superior.” Wang said this at a press event on July 24, when meeting with the Pakistan Foreign Minister in Chengdu, Sichuan.

Wang continued, “If the United States has not yet learned how to deal with other countries on an equal footing, it is our responsibility, along with the international community, to give the United States this lesson.”

On July 25, Wang met with the Foreign Minister of Finland in Chengdu, Sichuan. When asked by a reporter, Wang said, “The U.S. side is hyping up the lab leak theory with the presumption of guilt. Its purpose is to shift the blame for its own ineffectiveness in fighting the epidemic and to achieve the political goal of discrediting and suppressing other countries. … It is necessary to write this ugly page in the history of the human race’s fight against the epidemic.”

“We should trace the original source of not only the new coronavirus, but also the political virus.” He criticized the WHO’s second stage of Covid-19 origin probe as a deviation from the requirements of the 73rd WHO General Assembly resolution. “It seems that the U.S. has returned to the WHO with the intention of not joining the international fight against the epidemic but of continuing to use the platform to spread political viruses.”

Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman arrived in Tianjin on July 25 and was scheduled to meet with Wang Yi on Monday July 26. She was also to meet with China’s Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng, who oversees U.S.-China relations.

Source: Central News Agency, July 26, 2021
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202107260015.aspx

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

Research Centers for Xi Jinping’s Diplomatic and Economic Thoughts

On May 5, less than a year after the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs established the Research Center for Xi Jinping’s Diplomatic Thoughts in July of last year, the National Development and Reform Commission of China (NDRC), a macroeconomic management agency under the State Council, established the Research Center for Xi Jinping’s Economic Thoughts.

The research center was established with the approval of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. The state media reported   that “Xi Jinping’s Economic Thoughts” is an important component of “Xi Jinping’s Thoughts on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” and is “a fundamental guideline for economic work in the new era.”

In July of 2020, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs officially established the Research Center for Xi Jinping’s Diplomatic Thoughts. Foreign Minister Wang Yi praised Xi Jinping for his “great foresight and vision,” for “a series of new ideas and initiatives,” and for the formation of “Xi Jinping’s Diplomatic Thoughts.”

Source: Central News Agency, July 7, 2021
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202107070336.aspx

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

China Is Developing Supersonic Plane: Reach Anywhere on Earth in One Hour

According to a study by scientists involved in Chinese missions to Mars and the Moon, China is developing a supersonic aircraft which is larger than the Boeing 737.

The aircraft is 45 meters long, nearly a third longer than the Boeing 737-700, with two aspirated engines on top of the fuselage. The design has a pair of delta wings similar to those of the Concorde, but with the wingtips pointing upward. Such a complex design poses multiple aerodynamic challenges when the aircraft enters hypersonic speeds or exceeds five times the speed of sound. Researchers are using a new aerodynamic model to evaluate the aircraft’s performance at high altitudes and has proven effective on China’s latest space missions.

Liu Rui from the Beijing Institute of Technology and collaborators from the Institute of Aerospace Systems Engineering (宇航系统工程研究所) published a paper in the journal Physics of Gases. Liu was a key scientist on the Mars landing and lunar rock sampling missions. According to official media reports both of these required the spacecraft to fly through the atmosphere at hypervelocity.

Source: Sputnik News, July 14, 2021
https://sputniknews.cn/military/202107141034072408/

Briefings | | |   Defense/Military

Hong Kong Book Fair Zeroed Out Political Books

The Hong Kong Book Fair was suspended in 2020 due to the COVID-19 epidemic, and resumed this year as control of the epidemic has improved. However, this was the first Hong Kong Book Fair after the implementation of the “Hong Kong National Security Law.”

Jimmy Pang, the president of publisher Subculture, told Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) that in view of the implementation of the “Hong Kong National Security Law,” some participating booksellers had already met and reached a consensus and decided not to place and sell books that may violate the “Hong Kong National Security Law” in order to avoid “getting into trouble.”

Pang pointed out that because of the ambiguity of the “Hong Kong National Security Law,” many participating booksellers are worried. Not only political books, but some sensitive books, and even books that comment on current affairs, will not be exhibited at this year’s Hong Kong Book Fair. Pang described this year’s Hong Kong Book Fair by saying that “political books have been zeroed out.”

Tao Peikang, publishing manager of another book exhibitor, CUP Media, believes that self-censorship by exhibitors is inevitable under the pressure of “Hong Kong’s National Security Law” because, “We don’t know what content is illegal.”

Since July 2020, the Hong Kong SAR government’s Leisure and Cultural Services Department has removed dozens of books from public libraries on the grounds of (conflict with) the “Hong Kong National Security Law.”

Source: Central News Agency, July 13, 2021
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202107130353.aspx

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

China’s Official Vessels Enter Senkaku Islands Waters after Japan’s Defense Whitepaper Highlights Taiwan

Japan’s annual defense whitepaper, released on Tuesday July 13, has for the first time explicitly cited the importance of Taiwan’s stability. Japan’s Defense Ministry said in its white paper,“The stability of the situation around Taiwan is important, not only for the security of our country, but for the stability of the international community,”  “Our country must pay close attention to this, with an even greater sense of vigilance.”

The Japanese news agency Kyodo reported that Japan’s 11th Regional Coast Guard Headquarters discovered that four vessels from the Chinese Maritime Police Bureau entered the “territorial waters of Japan” around the Senkaku Islands (also called the Diaoyutai Islands) at around 10:20 a.m. on July 14, and then began to enter the contiguous zone off the “territorial waters” around 11:55 a.m. According to the report, this is the second time after July 12 that Chinese official ships entered the “territorial waters of Japan” around the Senkaku Islands. It is also the 30th day this year. One of the ships is equipped with a machine gun like device. The Japanese Coast Guard patrol ship warned the Chinese official ship to leave the “territorial waters.”

Taiwan has welcomed Japan’s unusually strong position, but Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian described the whitepaper’s wording as “extremely wrong and irresponsible.”

Source: Central News Agency, July 14, 2021
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202107140283.aspx

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend