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China to Increase the Proportion of New Graduates among the Military Recruits

China’s Ministry of Education and the National Defense Mobilization Department under the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Military Commission (CMC) jointly issued a notice on enlisting college graduates in 2020. The notice requires that the recruitment offices and education departments (education committees) of the governments of all provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) give a top priority to college graduates when recruiting for the military. The notice also asked to optimize the structure of the recruits from the college graduates by increasing the proportion of recent graduates, so as to furnish the military with more high-quality soldiers. Local governments have been told to set up medical check-up stations that accommodate the current epidemic prevention and control, and establish an unimpeded green channel for college graduates to enlist in the military.

Source: People’s Daily, June 3, 3020
http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/html/2020-06/03/nw.D110000renmrb_20200603_4-06.htm

Briefings | | |   Defense/Military

China’s Premier: 600 Million Have a Monthly Income of US$140

China’s Premier Li Keqiang said at a press conference that China is a developing a country with a large population, with an average annual per capita disposable income of 30,000 yuan (US$4,213.30). There are 600 million people who have low and middle incomes, whose average monthly income is merely 1,000 yuan (US$ 140.40).

Li Keqiang added, “It may be difficult even to rent an apartment with income of 1,000 yuan in a medium-sized city.” Li promised to make people’s livelihood a high priority.

According to People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s mouthpiece, a Chinese and foreign press conferences was held on the afternoon of the 28th, after the closing of the 13th National People’s Congress of China. It was when the media questioned Li Keqiang that he made the above remarks.

Li Keqiang said that the task of poverty alleviation is a “sophisticated commitment” that the CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping made to the entire society and that it must be completed as scheduled this year. Originally, there were 5 million people living in poverty. Under the impact of this epidemic, some more people may have fallen back to poverty, and the task of poverty alleviation has become even tougher.

Source: Central News Agency, May 29, 2020
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202005290046.aspx

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Taiwan Develops Humanitarian Assistance Program for Hong Kong Citizens

As Beijing pushed forward and imposed a new national security law on Hong Kong, Chen Ming-Tong, Minister of the Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), announced on Thursday May 29 that Taiwan developed the Hong Kong Humanitarian Assistance Action Plan in accordance with Article 18 of the “Laws and Regulations Regarding Hong Kong & Macao Affairs.” The plan contains four principles: the government takes the lead; MAC is in charge of cross-agency collaboration; the government establishes and implements a legal entity; funding comes from the government’s budget.

Chen made it clear that Taiwan will adopt a two-part policy and treat Hong Kong citizens and the Hong Kong government separately. It will definitely not treat the Hong Kong people the same as it treats the people from mainland China. “Article 18 is for the Hong Kong people who want to come to Taiwan. For example, if a person is a financial professional or has technological talent and he wants to come to Taiwan, we have an overall plan to make it more convenient. The policy objective includes what happens after people come, how they deal with their resettlement, and how they take care of their lives. All of these are in this action plan.”

Chen added, “As the golden standard of Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy has declined, we must have second thoughts. In the past we regarded Hong Kong as the third (independent) place in politics. Now, with Beijing’s imposition of the National Security Law, then, on the issue of national security, does the Hong Kong government carry out its own will or Beijing’s? Because the national security goal of Beijing is to unify Taiwan and wipe out the Republic of China, we have concerns about our national security. At this point, Article 60 applies to the future situation of the Hong Kong government. We must evaluate and may consider suspending part of the act if it jeopardizes our national security.” Article 60 of the “Laws and Regulations Regarding Hong Kong & Macao Affairs” is a provision to enable Taiwan to respond when “any change occurs in the situation of Hong Kong or Macau such that the implementation of this Act endangers the security of Taiwan.”

Source: Radio Free Asia, May 28, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/htm/tw-guidelines-05282020063302.html

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

A Chinese City to Implement Permanent “Health Barcode”

Hangzhou, a Chinese city 100 miles southwest of Shanghai, plans to launch a permanent “health barcode,” a system that monitors people’s health real-time and establishes a personalized index based on a number of indicators. Local media report that a score between zero and 100 will be given after reading personal medical records, physical examination results, and lifestyle management data. The program is considered an expansion of the current nationwide health code program, launched in February, to track potential infections and close contacts of the new coronavirus. An official infographic shows individual scores that are presented in different colors. A low score is displayed in purple or red, and the higher scores are in green.

Factors that affect the score include exercises, alcoholic drinking, smoking and sleep. For example, drinking 200 ml of alcohol resulted in a drop of 1.5 points, and smoking 5 cigarettes led to a drop of 3 points. In contrast, walking 15,000 steps earned 5 points.

The city’s health department said it planned to complete the project in May or June, but did not disclose how the personal information would be collected.

The ambitious program, however, did not win public opinion. The news has caused an uproar on social media. A large number of netizens consider the collection of health data a violation of privacy and may also lead to discrimination. Someone commented, “What should I do if I am asked to show the health code when I look for a job?” In a poll on Weibo, 6,020 out of the 7,000 who were questioned chose not to support it.

After the outbreak of the corona virus, every Chinese province began to implement its own health code system. This system is mainly based on China’s two main applications: Tencent’s WeChat and Alibaba’s Alipay. In May this year, the authorities announced a nationwide unified health code system. Chinese media report that the health code requires the users to declare information including their real name, gender, mobile phone number, and address. It also integrates air, railway, highway, and public transportation data, as well as telecom operators and payment data with banks and financial institutions.

Today, in most parts of China, entering and leaving communities and buildings requires that each person show a green-colored health code, an indication of no infection. The system is believed to play an important role in tracking the chain of transmission of the virus. At the same time, the massive collection of personal data has caused widespread concerns about the infringement on privacy.

Source: BBC Chinese, May 26, 2020
https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-52805052

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

China Pumps US$22.5 billion into its Chipmaker SMIC

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), headquartered in Shanghai and incorporated in the Cayman Islands, is a Chinese semiconductor foundry company. On May 15, the Hong Kong-listed chip maker announced that two China state-backed funds injected a total of US$22.5 billion into its wafer factory that will help SMIC produce advanced chips.

As the Trump administration has moved to block global chip supplies to blacklisted telecoms equipment giant Huawei Technologies, which is gradually shifting its own wafer design and production from Taiwan based TSMC to SMIC in response to the possibility of more restrictive measures, China is betting the local chip foundry can help reduce the country’s reliance on US technology.

The plant has the capacity to produce 6,000 14-nanometre wafers a month and plans to boost that to 35,000. After the capital infusion, the SMIC plant’s registered capital jumped from US$3.5 billion to US$6.5 billion. The chip maker’s stake in the facility will drop from 50.1 per cent to 38.5 per cent, according to the company.

Source: Central News Agency, May 17, 2020
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202005170185.aspx

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

China’s Spy Activities in Belgium

The State Security Service, the Veiligheid van de Staat (VSSE), a Belgian state intelligence agency, recently spoke out about China’s spy activities in the military and scientific arena posing threats to EU security.

In October 2019, Belgium declared Song Xinning, the Confucius Institute president of the Free University of Brussels (VUB), as persona non grata, revoking his visa and banning his entry into the 26 European Schengen states for 8 years. During his ten-year tenure at VUB, Song had engaged in espionage activities for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and was regarded as “sabotaging national security.”

“As part of the ambitious ‘Made in China 2025’ project, which provides for rapid development of know-how in China itself, all available means must be used to import as much knowledge as possible into China,” the VSSE told the EUobserver, a not-for-profit online newspaper based in Brussels, when it was describing China’s goal of siphoning information from abroad. “These include formal knowledge transfer programmes, such as exchanges between researchers, joint ventures, and takeovers of companies. In some cases, China also does economic espionage.”

On May 7, the EUobserver disclosed some details of some confidential VSSE reports dated from 2010 to 2016, which stated that Chinese spies have targeted Belgian biological warfare and vaccine experts, British pharmaceutical giant and vaccine-maker GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in Belgium and Belgian high-tech firms.

VSSE is also concerned about the China Belgium Technology Centre (CBTC), a Chinese-funded “smart valley” in Louvain-la-Neuve. It houses 23 Chinese and Belgian firms in the life sciences, IT, and high-tech manufacturing sectors, and will house up to 800 Chinese high-tech specialists and entrepreneurs when it is completed in late 2021. “And even if the CBTC itself was not a front for Chinese intelligence, it could be used by the MSS (Ministry of State Security) as a back door in the future, the VSSE warned.”

On May 15, the French newspaper Le Monde,  also reported on long-held VSSE suspicions that Chinese intelligence had installed surveillance equipment in Malta’s EU embassy in Brussels in 2007, when a Chinese firm renovated the building.

Source: Radio Free Asia, May 15, 2020.
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/junshiwaijiao/cl-05152020125714.html
EUobserver, May 6, 2020
https://euobserver.com/science/148244

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

70 Percent of Recent Global Times Front Page Editorials Target the U.S.

As the 2019 coronavirus epidemic continues its worldwide rampage, China’s official media has concentrated on criticizing the United States. Data collected by a Wechat account, a popular Chinese social media platform, shows that 70 percent of the front page editorials of Global Times, a daily tabloid newspaper under the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily newspaper, with a focus on international issues, recently have been  targeting U.S.

According to its May 17 posting, the account, “yuguisuibi” by name, found that among the recent 40 Global Times’ daily front page editorials, titles of 29 articles carry the words “the United States.” The proportion is as high as 72.5 percent. The figure was, however, only 18, or 45 percent, out of 40 editorials over the same time period last year.

Among other titles, the wording “global” shows 3 times, “World” 4 times, and “G20” twice. In addition, “Britain” appeared once due to Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s infection.

Source: Central News Agency, May 18, 2020
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202005180030.aspx

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

China Cancels Entrance Exam for Foreign Students amid Concerns over Brainwashing

Undergraduate programs in a few top universities in China are canceling their entrance exams for foreign students. Parents of domestic students feel angry; others believe that, as Beijing’s Confucius Institute program faces growing resistance overseas, this is a way to work around to the brainwashing of foreign kids.

In early May, Peking University posted on its website a “Notice on the Adjustment of the Undergraduate Entrance Examination Program for International Students in 2020.” It had an explanation that remote interviews, instead of written exams, would be used to admit students, citing concerns about the ongoing epidemic. A few top tier universities, including Tsinghua University, Renmin University of China, and Shanghai Jiaotong University, copied the practice.

Chinese netizens are angry. While Chinese kids have to take a tough college entrance examination, why is it so easy for foreign students to go to a good university? Ms. Zhu told Radio Free Asia (RFA), “As prestigious universities in China, they should give priority to Chinese kids. It is a shame for the Chinese Communist Party to do this.”

Shi Dajun, a Chinese education scholar, believes this policy has everything to do with the resistance that Confucius Institutes (CIs) have received in recent years. “Not only Tsinghua Peking University, but many schools are exempting admission exams for foreign students. After the CIs have been defeated abroad, this is a new direction.”

Mr. Cai, a retired professor from Lanzhou University, told RFA that it may be a strategic measure to attract foreign students, so that China’s totalitarian ideas can be planted in the minds of young Westerners. China provides students in Africa and countries along the “Belt and Road” an annual stipend of 300,000 yuan (US$42,000). “This is a way to bring up a whole pro-China generation and lay a good foundation for friendly relations with these countries. One can say that the state spares no expense in this regard, and is doing something we cannot see.”

Shi Daijun added, “Originally, Beijing wished to use the Confucius Institute to push the patriotic education abroad, as a way to brainwash foreigners. The brainwashing of Chinese people is now almost done. They feel it more urgent to brainwash foreign young people.”

According to the Ministry of Education, the budget for foreign students in China in 2019 was 3.92 billion yuan (US$ 0.55 billion), an increase of 18.1 percent over 2018.

Source: Radio Free Asia, May 11, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/zhengzhi/ql-05112020060257.html

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend