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China Claims it Will Build a Space Station within two years

During China’s National Day, the state media revealed much information about China’s construction of the space station “Tiangong-1.” China claims it will complete the construction of the space station within two years.

The Chinese state media reported on this space station project in detail, including the construction schedule, timetable, multiple components under construction and astronaut training. China stated that it will complete 11 intensive lift-offs within two years, using the “Shenzhou” manned spacecraft and the “Tianzhou” cargo spacecraft to deliver astronauts and multiple space station modules into space.

The Long March 5-B rocket is planned to launch at the Wenchang Launch Center in Hainan province in the first half of 2021 to carry the “Tianhe” core cabin module. The Long March 2-F rocket will subsequently launch at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Gansu province, carrying the “Shenzhou” manned spacecraft.

China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) announced on October 1 that 18 astronauts will participate in the program, including seven pilots, seven aerospace engineers and four payload specialists, one of whom is a female.

China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation once stated that the mission life of China’s “Tiangong-1” space station will last about 15 years, which can accommodate three astronauts in orbit for a long term station with a half-year rotation, and a short-term stay of six people for ten days.

In June this year, Chinese state media announced it was partnering with 23 entities from 17 countries, including France, Germany, Japan, Kenya, and Peru, to carry out scientific experiments on board.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recently issued a warning that China’s space station program may threaten the U.S. space superiority, after the International Space Station is decommissioned. Administrator Jim Bridenstine told the lawmakers this was critical to maintaining US space supremacy in the face of a planned Chinese space station that Beijing hopes will be operational by 2022.

The first parts of the International Space Station were launched in 1998 and it has been lived in continuously since 2000. The station, which serves as a space science lab and is a partnership between the US, Russia, Japan, Europe and Canada, is currently expected to be operated until 2030.

“In order to be able to have the United States of America have a presence in low Earth orbit, we have to be prepared for what comes next,” he added.

To that end, NASA has requested $150 million for the 2021 fiscal year to help develop the commercialization of low Earth orbit, defined as 2,000 km or less from the planet’s surface.

“China is rapidly building what they call the ‘Chinese International Space Station,’ and they’re rapidly marketing that space station to all of our international partners,” said Bridenstine. “It would be a tragedy if, after all of this time and all of this effort, we were to abandon low Earth orbit and cede that territory.”

Source: Voice of America, October 9, 2020
https://www.voachinese.com/a/Chinese-media-touts-its-space-station-program-20201009/5615428.html

Briefings | | |   Defense/Military

China’s Instruction to Indian Media on How to Report Taiwan’s National Day Backfired

On Wednesday, October 7, an Indian independent journalist Aditya Raj Kaul posted the full text of a letter from the Chinese Embassy to India on Twitter. The letter gave instructions to Indian media on how to “properly” report the 109th anniversary of the Republic of China’s National Day on October 10th.

The letter started out by saying, “Regarding the so-called forthcoming ‘National Day of Taiwan,’ the Chinese Embassy in India would like to remind our media friends that there is only one China in the world, and the Government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legitimate government representing the whole of China. Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory.”

The letter then claimed these “facts” are recognized by the UN and represent the “universal consensus of the international community.” It went on to mention that countries with diplomatic relations with China, including India, should all honor the “one China” policy.

The Chinese embassy then stressed, “Taiwan shall not be referred to as a ‘country (nation)’ or the ‘Republic of China’ and the leader of China’s Taiwan region (shall not be referred to) as ‘President,’ so as not to send the wrong signals to the general public.” The letter then ended with a thinly veiled threat, “We are willing to maintain communication with media friends on China-related reports.”

The incident invited widespread attention. Nicola Smith, Asian correspondent of the Daily Telegraph also commented on Twitter. “Can’t imagine the Indian media will be told what to do by the Chinese embassy, particularly given the border tensions. (There is) also a factually inaccurate statement. The One China principle, as understood by Beijing, is NOT the ‘universal consensus of the international community.’”

Aditya Raj Kaul asked on Twitter, “Is this an indirect threat to Indian media who cover Taiwan?” He forwarded the letter to the official Twitter accounts of Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Digital Diplomacy Lab.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted a response on Twitter saying, “India is the largest democracy on Earth with a vibrant press & freedom-loving people. But it looks like communist China is hoping to march into the subcontinent by imposing censorship.” Digital Diplomacy Lab also posted a cartoon that showed President Tsai Ing-wen and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi were toasting together.

On Thursday October 8, the Indian media responded to the Chinese Embassy with action. The mainstream Indian newspapers Indian Express and The Statesman each published a full-page advertisement for Taiwan’s October 10th National Day, and a notice on a special TV report on Taiwan.

Source: Radio Free Asia, October 8, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/in-ad-10082020095552.html

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

Germany to Pass Legislation to Conduct “Political Review” of Telecom Equipment Suppliers, Including Huawei

The cabinet of German Chancellor Merkel plans to pass a bill in the coming weeks, which will implement a two-stage approval process for telecommunications equipment suppliers. In addition to technical inspections of various telecommunications equipment components, the manufacturers’ “credibility” will also be under scrutiny.

According to the German newspaper Handelsblatt, the draft bill stated that the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) is responsible for the first stage, where the Chinese telecom giant Huawei will not have too many obstacles to overcome, but the threshold for the second stage of “political review” will be insurmountable. Suppliers must provide a detailed “credibility statement” and go through layers of review and approval processes from multiple government entities including the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of the Interior, and the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. Although the new bill does not directly ban Huawei, it will create obstacles to approval. The bill may also include the German intelligence community in the approval process for telecommunications equipment suppliers. Deutsche Welle stated that, in recent years, the Federal Intelligence Agency has repeatedly expressed its worries about Huawei’s participation in German communication networks.

Germany has always been one of Huawei’s main overseas markets. Huawei has entered into deals with Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, and Telefónica Deutschland to provide radio access network (RAN) equipment, the so-called peripheral 5G equipment. However, the scope of approval under the draft bill is not limited to 5G core networks. In other words, if the bill takes effect, German telecom operators may be forced to remove Huawei’s peripheral equipment from the network.

The draft is expected to be discussed at the German federal cabinet meeting in November, and will then be submitted to Parliament for formal legislative procedures.

In an opinion piece, the Wall Street Journal said, “Huawei has longstanding ties to the People’s Liberation Army, and no Chinese company is independent under Communist Party rule.  … China is Germany’s largest trading partner, and Chinese state subsidies make Huawei equipment notably cheaper, but Merkel is finally moving as she faces opposition from across the German political spectrum and within her own party. The Chinese government may retaliate against German companies doing business in China, but that would only validate Berlin’s decision not to trust Beijing.”

Source: Voice of America, October 7, 2020
https://www.voachinese.com/a/germany-to-informally-ban-huawei-5g-20201007/5611834.html

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

New Course at Chinese Universities: “Introduction to Xi Thoughts”

The Ministry of Education published an article in the Qiushi journal, the Chinese Communist Party’s flagship magazine, and announced that, after the start of school in the fall of 2020, 37 universities, including Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Nankai University, will launch the course, “Introduction to Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese characteristics for a New Era.”

The article proposed to use the third volume of “Xi Jinping: The Governance of China” and the “Lecture Notes on General Secretary Xi Jinping’s Important Speeches on Education” as the new textbooks for the school’s ideological and political courses. It also recommended writing and compiling supplementary teaching materials such as “Readings for Students on Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese characteristics for a New Era.”

Japanese media Nikkei Asian Review commented that the purpose of launching Xi Jinping Thoughts as an obligatory course seems to commemorate the centennial anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party next year, and to respond to Chinese intellectuals who recently spoken out bravely against Xi.

Xi Jinping himself even said in one Qiushi article under his name on August 31, “I am very concerned about running ideological and political courses.” “If Ideological and political teachers themselves do not believe it, how can they teach students?”

For example, in Xi Jinping’s alma mater, Tsinghua University, undergraduates in the School of Economics and Management need to take ideological and political courses such as “Outline of Modern Chinese History,” “Basic Principles of Marxism,” and “Introduction to Mao Zedong Thoughts and the Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics,” as well as the two-credit course “Introduction to Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese characteristics for a New Era.”

Source: Radio Free Asia, October 6, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/zhengzhi/xx-10062020141252.html

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

DHS: China Is a Long-term Strategic Threat to the U.S.

In October, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a first-of-its-kind Homeland Threat Assessment. The report mentioned major threats that countries such as China and Russia pose, including cybersecurity and foreign influence. Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf called China a long-term strategic threat to the United States.

The report stated that the United States faces potential threats that China poses in terms of cyber security, foreign influence, and supply chains.

On October 6, Wolf tweeted, “The most long term strategic threat to Americans, our Homeland, and our way of life is the threat from China.”

The report said, “China already poses a high cyber espionage threat to the Homeland and Beijing’s cyber-attack capabilities will grow.”

“Chinese cyber actors will, almost certainly, continue to engage in wide-ranging cyber espionage to steal intellectual property and personally identifiable information (PII) from U.S. businesses and government agencies to bolster their civil-military industrial development, gain an economic advantage, and support intelligence operations. China possesses an increasing ability to threaten and potentially disrupt U.S. critical infrastructure.”

DHS expects China’s cyber operations against U.S. companies to focus on critical manufacturing, defense, the industrial base, energy, healthcare, and transportation sectors.

“Chinese operatives probably are waging disinformation campaigns using overt and covert tactics—including social media trolls— to shift responsibility for the pandemic to other countries, including the United States.” “Since August 2019, more than 10,000 suspected fake Twitter accounts with suspected ties to the Chinese Government have been involved in a coordinated influence campaign.”

On the 2020 U.S. presidential election, “China likely will continue using overt and covert influence operations to denigrate the U.S. Presidential Administration and its policies and to shape the U.S. domestic information environment in favor of China. China will further use its traditional ‘soft power’ influence toolkit—overt economic measures and lobbying—to promote U.S. policies more aligned with China’s interests.”

China will also “seek to cultivate influence with state and local leaders directly and indirectly, often via economic carrots and sticks such as informal and legal or social agreements that seek to promote cultural and commercial ties. Chinese officials calculate that U.S. state- and local-level officials enjoy a degree of diplomatic independence from Washington and may leverage these relationships to advance policies that are in China’s interest during times of strained relations.”

In terms of economic security, “China and Russia will continue to represent the top threats to U.S. supply chain security, given the sophisticated intelligence and cyber capabilities they can use to infiltrate trusted suppliers and vendors to target equipment and systems. Criminal actors also will engage in efforts to compromise supply chains, with such methods as inserting malicious code in a third party’s software to conduct operations against firms that use the software.”

The report identifies China’s threat in U.S. supply chains of medical products. DHS is “targeting illicit Chinese manufacturers who produced and disseminated fraudulent or prohibited COVID-19 PPE and medical supplies to the United States. This has resulted in the seizure of over 1,000,000 FDA-prohibited COVID-19 test kits and 750,000 counterfeit masks.”

“China is collecting information on U.S. supply chain shortages and is using the COVID-19 crisis to build additional leverage with the United States. … China could exploit future shortages of critical supplies by conditioning their provision on U.S. acquiescence in other matters important to Beijing.”

On academic institutions and research, “China—which has mobilized vast resources to support its industrial development and defense goals—will continue exploiting U.S. academic institutions and the visa system to transfer valuable research and intellectual property (IP) that Beijing calculates will provide a military or economic advantage over the United States and other nations.”

“China will remain the leading source of U.S. trade policy violations. Actions by China-based criminal organizations will continue to present the principal challenge to U.S. enforcement of trade laws and policies in the year ahead, despite progress in U.S.-China negotiations aimed at addressing this issue.”

Wolf told CBS during an interview that the China threat “cuts across a variety of different threats, from the cyber threats we see, from foreign influence, to supply chain security, to exploiting our academic and visa systems, foreign investment here in the U.S., trade policy violations and the like.” He said, “It goes on and on and on. …”  “Just across the board, threat after threat stream, we see China playing a very significant and enhanced role really trying to do the U.S. some long-term harm.”

Source: Voice of America, October 7, 2020
https://www.voachinese.com/a/dhs-homeland-threat-assessment-china-20201007/5612461.html

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

More Than 80 Latin American Politicians and Scholars Sign Letter Supporting Taiwan

On September 28, More than 80 political and opinion leaders from countries including the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Colombia, Chile, Uruguay, Mexico, Venezuela and Cuba jointly issued a statement of support for Taiwan. On Monday, October 5, Directorio Democrático Cubano Secretary-General Orlando Gutierrez presented this joint declaration to Taiwan’s office in Miami.

In an interview with Radio Free Asia, Gutierrez said that Latin America regards Taiwan as an economically developed and democratic island country that has a positive impact on the world. Therefore, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) recent frequent provocative measures have drawn great sympathy in the region. “When they saw the CCP’s military provocations and threats to Taiwan, especially during the memorial period of the late former President Lee Teng-hui, Congressional members and intellectuals from various countries responded. They wrote this letter, expressing their support for Taiwan and opposition to any aggression or military actions that the CCP might take against the Republic of China (Taiwan).”

The declaration, in Spanish, issued an “urgent call to the world and especially to the leaders of democratic nations to deplore the climate of terror that the Xi Jinping regime has promoted against [the ROC] and its president Tsai Ing-wen.”

Among those who have signed the letter are Costa Rican Congressman Dragos Dolanescu, former Dominican Minister of Energy and Mining Pelegrín Castillo, former Mexican prosecutor René Bolio, and Colombia Senator María Fernanda Cabal.

Dominican media reported that former Dominican Minister Castillo stated that many Dominican leaders are increasingly aware that, despite their remote location, they are closely connected to Taiwan when safeguarding freedom and democracy. Costa Rican Congressman Dolanescu also expressed dissatisfaction with the government’s choice to abandon diplomatic relations with Taiwan and instead recognize China. He emphasized that it is more meaningful to support Taiwan because the two countries share common characteristics including democracy, freedom of speech and respect for human rights.

Source: Radio Free Asia, October 6, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/gangtai/cm-10062020132706.html

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

Japan to Step up Screening Student Visas in 2021

According to Yomiuri Shimbun, a major Japanese newspaper published in Tokyo, starting in 2021, the Japanese government will be more strict in reviewing the visa applications of international university students and foreign researchers in order to prevent advanced technology and information from flowing to China.

Japan’s National Security Agency will work with the Ministry of Foreign Affair, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of the Economy, Trade and Industry, and the Ministry of Defense to build a system to share information about suspicious personnel so that overseas diplomats can use the platform for visa approval and issuance. Suspicious visa applicants may be subject to denial. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has set aside a budget of 220 million yen (US$ 2.1 million) for this purpose.

The report refers to the U.S. and Australia’s heightened alert to China’s organized use of students to obtain foreign technology. As Japan is not conducting rigorous visa screening, experts worry that Chinese students who the U.S. turns away may choose to study in Japan.

Source: Central News Agency, October 5, 2020
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/aopl/202010050203.aspx

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

SMIC Stockpiling Supplies Far More Than One Year’s Needs

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) is the Chinese partially state-owned publicly-listed semiconductor foundry company. The U.S. Department of Commerce has placed an export restriction on its suppliers. It is scaling up its procurement from upstream suppliers in the United States, Europe, and Japan, with a size exceeding a full-year’s demand for 2020. The procurement items include etching, lithography and wafer cleaning equipment. The purchase of consumables used to maintain the operation of the equipment is also more than one year’s need. SMIC is even cooperating with other Chinese chip manufacturers to establish a shared reserve of such parts, and has established a central warehouse to store these products.

A source from a U.S. chip equipment manufacturer said that SMIC is eager to stock up on equipment. The company ordered more equipment than needed for its current expansion plan. At the end of last year, ASML (ASML.US), Europe’s largest chip manufacturing equipment manufacturer, shipped an advanced extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) chip production tool to SMIC. However, the transaction has been put off.

SMIC relies heavily on foreign semiconductor equipment suppliers, including U.S. based Applied Materials, Lam Research, KLA, Taradyne, ASML in the Netherlands and Tokyo in Japan.

Source: Sina.com, October 4, 2020
https://finance.sina.com.cn/tech/2020-10-04/doc-iivhvpwz0355862.shtml

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology US-China Relations