Skip to content

All posts by NNL - 72. page

Pandemic: COVID Spread to Inner Mongolia, Wuhan, and Beijing

The COVID-19 virus has continued to spread in China, reaching eleven provinces and municipalities, including Beijing, Inner Mongolia, Guangdong, Sichuan, Hubei, Jiangsu, Yunnan, Heilongjiang, Shandong, Shanxi, and Hebei provinces. Hohhot, the capital city of Inner Mongolia currently suffers severely and COVID has also spread from Hohhot to Baotou, Inner Mongolia’s largest city and several other counties in Inner Mongolia. Beijing also reported COVID cases due to people attending a training class organized by a healthcare product company in Wuhan City, Hubei Province.

Since the Chinese Communist Party is known for hiding the COVID infection numbers, the actual spread of the infection is not clear.

Related postings on Chinascope:

Source: Epoch Times, February 23, 2022
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/22/2/23/n13598626.htm

Hot Topics | | |   Social Stability

Local Governments in China Sold Land to Themselves to Maintain the Price

Selling land usage rights is the main source of income for local governments in China. As Chinese private real estate developers are stressed for cash these days, state-owned-enterprises, especially the city investment enterprises, have become the main buyers when governments auction land.

However, the city investment enterprises are the financing platforms that local governments set up to raise money for government spending. They are owned and managed by the government. Government’s selling land to them is in essence to move land from the left hand and give it to the right hand. This shows money on the books. However, in reality, it does not bring money to the government. So this practice just serves to maintain real estate prices. These city investment enterprises still need to find true real estate companies to develop the land. It is at that time that they hope they will make money.

Source: Epoch Times, February 19, 2022
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/22/2/19/n13590084.htm

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources Government/Politics

Study Shows Political Connections Give Chinese Companies Preferential Access to Money

Bloomberg reported that researchers at the University of Navarra in Spain and the University of Manchester in the U.K. conducted a study of the Chinese companies that have connections to top-level Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials. The researchers found that those with connections received more government subsidies that those without such connections.

Between 2012 and 2017, private firms that were listed on Chinese stock exchanges and that had board members who attended college alongside a member of the CCP Politburo, which has the 25 highest-ranking Chinese officials, received  an average of 16 percent more in subsidies relative to their sales when compared with similar companies without those ties. However, these “connected” companies did not have faster sales growth than the others, indicating that the special favors given to them were not the best use of China’s resources.

Source: Bloomberg, February 18, 2022
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-18/chinese-businesses-benefit-from-ties-to-elites-study-shows

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Did The CCP Violate Its Own Nationality Law to Cheat in the Winter Olympic Games?

There have been questions about whether the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cheated the world in sending athletes, who technically are not Chinese nationals, to represent China when competing in the Beijing Winter Olympic Games.

China’s own law does not recognize dual citizenship. Article 3 of China’s Nationality Law states that, “Chinese citizens are not recognized as having dual nationality.” Article 8 states that foreign nationals who are approved for Chinese nationality “may no longer retain foreign nationality.” China’s National Immigration Administration explicitly states in the Instructions for Applying for Chinese Nationality,  “After being approved for Chinese nationality, you may not retain your foreign nationality.”

Rule 41 of Olympic Charter states that any competitor in the Olympic Games must be a national of the country of the NOC which is entering such competitor. A competitor who is a national of two or more countries at the same time may represent either one of them, as he may elect.

Therefore, since China does not allow dual citizenship, whichever athlete represents China in the Beijing Olympic Games must be of Chinese nationality and only of Chinese nationality. H or she cannot have another nationality from another country.

Eileen Gu, an American  whose mother was a Chinese American, represented China and won a gold medal and a silver one in freestyle skiing. However, in the United States Federal Register which publishes the list of people giving up their U.S. nationality, there is no such record for Gu,  indicating theat Gu may not have given up her U.S. citizenship and therefore she is not a Chinese national based on China’s own law. Gu didn’t answer her citizenship questions directly, but she said that she is American when she is in the United States and Chinese when she is  in China.

Jeremy Smith, the goalie of the hockey team Bridgeport Sound Tigers affiliated with the New York Islanders, was recruited to China’s national hockey team. Smith stated that he would not give up his U.S. citizenship and was told it would not be an issue.

The athletes may not be legal experts and may have been promised not to worry about the nationality issue. What should be scrutinized here is whether the CCP, in order to look good in the Olympics, is violating its own law.

Source: Epoch Times, February 15, 2022
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/22/2/15/n13578136.htm

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Pandemic: China’s “Zero” COVID Policy Hands Companies Huge Profits

A video of the talk by Huang Wansheng during a private gathering was spread on the Internet. Huang is a scholar at the Yenching Institute of Harvard University and a distinguished Professor at Tsinghua University in China.

Huang said that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) paid $27,000 to buy a one-way ticket for him in July 2020 to go to Beijing to lead a technological pandemic prevention project “that Xi Jinping himself led directly.”

Huang said that China’s “Zero” COVID policy was driven by the CCP’s elite group to collect money. A company in China made 670 billion yuan (US $106 billion) from nucleic acid testing. Whenever a city has one or a few COVID-19 cases, the interest-vested CCP group orders the whole city to be tested so that they can make a huge profit by selling the testing kits. Forcing people to take multiple vaccine shots  serves the same purpose.

Source: Epoch Times, February 9, 2022
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/22/2/9/n13565066.htm

Hot Topics | | |   Economy/Resources Social Stability

China’s Biotech Companies Operating in the U.S.

Epoch Times published an article  pointing out that a growing number of biotech, genomics, and med-tech firms that have ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are operating in the United States, raising security concerns about American citizens’ medical and genetic data.

The article listed several Chinese companies as examples:

  • China’s Lepu Biopharma Co. 0pened its U.S. branch Innocube Bioscience, Inc. in Texas. Beijing’s sovereign wealth fund, the State Development and Investment Corporation (SDIC), heavily invests in Lepu.
  • BeiGene, a Chinese pharmaceutical and research firm located in San Mateo, California, conducts research on targeted molecular agents related to gene sequencing. The company’s research center in China has received significant local government funding.
  • The PLA-linked BGI Group purchased Complete Genomics, a California-based company that holds the genetic information of U.S. citizens. Several of China’s sovereign wealth funds have invested in the company.
  • The Chinese firm WuXi Pharma Tech acquired U.S. genomic information company NextCODE Health in 2015.
  • Also In 2015, IuXi Biologics, bought a stake in an American DNA testing company, 23andMe. WuXi Biologics now has locations in Massachusetts and New Jersey. Its drug plant in Delaware was built with a Chinese government grant.
  • WuXi Advanced Therapies (WuXi ATU) announced the opening of a cell and gene therapy testing facility in the Philadelphia Navy Yard in November 2021.

The article also said that U.S. money has aided the CCP’s infiltration of the U.S. bio and medical industries. Last month, Chinese firm Andon Health Co. received a $1.28 billion contract from the U.S. Army Contracting Command to supply COVID-19 self-test kits. A subsidiary of Andon, iHealth Labs, signed a contract with the New York State Department of Health in December for $120 million worth of self-test kits.

Source: Epoch Times, February 7, 2022
https://www.theepochtimes.com/ccp-investment-in-us-biopharm-and-genomics-companies-raises-security-concerns_4259581.html

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Chinese Student Association at George Washington University Attempted to Silence Criticism of the CCP

The Chinese Student and Scholar Association (CSSA) at George Washington University (GWU), located in Washington, DC, dragged the school into a political controversy. Some students posted an Olympic Game-themed cartoon drawing created by cartoonist Ba Duicao, a China-born Australian citizen, to show the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) human rights violations. For example, a skier dressed in China’s red national flag was shooting a person wearing an East Turkestan flag.

The Chinese Student and Scholar Association and the Chinese Culture Association at GWU protested to the school, claiming these posters spread racial discrimination and hatred and that the Chinese students felt they were insulted.

GWU President Mark Wrighton replied to the two groups in an email, saying that he would take action to find out the people who posted the posters and hold them accountable.

However, soon Mr. Wrighton realized that the CSSA had misled him. He published a statement to admit that he made a mistake in responding too quickly without knowing the full details. He concluded that the posters were a political statement but not racial in nature and so the school would not take any action against the student who posted them. He stated that he supports freedom of speech.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission pointed out in its 2018 annual report that the CSSA’s at U.S. universities have close ties with China’s embassies or consulates in the United States and receive funding from them as well. For example, the GWU CSSA introduced itself as the “only official Chinese student association” that is “dually accredited” by the Chinese Embassy in the United States and George Washington University.

Source: Radio Free Asia, February 7, 2022
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/junshiwaijiao/rc-02072022101053.html

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics US-China Relations

Pandemic: Baise City, Guangxi Autonomous Region Locked Down

While the virus continues spreading in China, Beijing continues its zero COVID-19 policy. On February 7, Baise City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region announced it would lock down the city. Guangxi reported 72 COVID cases on February 8, among which, 54 cases were from Baise. The Chinese Communist Party is known for hiding cases of COVID infection and the number of deaths, so the actual infection count is unknown.

Related postings on Chinascope:

Source: Epoch Times, February 9, 2022
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/22/2/9/n13565744.htm

Hot Topics | | |   Social Stability