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Briefings - 252. page

The Paper: 15 Countries Will Sign the RCEP Agreement

Well-known new Chinese news site The Paper recently reported that the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Agreement is set to be signed at the Fourth RCEP Leadership Summit on November 15 in Hanoi, Vietnam. The 10 ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries initiated RCEP. Six dialogue partner countries including China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and India were invited to participate. The aim is to reduce tariffs and non-tariff barriers and establish a 16-nation free trade agreement with a unified market. The negotiations started in November 2012 and covered over ten trade areas including small and medium-sized enterprises, investment rules, economic and technical cooperation, as well as trade in goods and services. However, In 2019, India decided to withdraw from the negotiation citing unresolved important issues. The 15 signing countries account for 30 percent of the world’s population and just under 30 percent of the global GDP.

Source: The Paper, November 14, 2020
https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_9990776

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

China Built a New Tunnel in the Doklam Region between China and India

Well-known Chinese news site Sina (NASDAQ: SINA) recently reported, according to Indian media, that new satellite images showed China has built a new tunnel in the Doklam region where China and India had more than 70 days of military confrontation in 2017. The new tunnel is around 500 meters and will ensure smooth winter time military deployments. In winter, for several months, the Doklam region is often fully covered with heavy snow. If there were no such tunnel, entering that region could be significantly disrupted. China constructed this critical tunnel while having another military conflict with India in the eastern Ladakh region. So far China and India have conducted eight rounds of negotiations without reaching an agreement. There is no plan to disengage on either side. It appears that the current military confrontation will continue through the entire winter. While China was improving road conditions, India also strengthened its road quality in the Doklam region to ensure swift military operations. In the past three years, China more than doubled the number of air force bases, air defense positions, and helicopter airports. As soon as the construction is completed, these facilities will provide strong support for the Chinese military  .

Source: Sina, November 12, 2020
https://chinanews.sina.com/gb/chnmedia/huanqiu/2020-11-12/doc-ihacvzpq2834894.shtml

Briefings | | |   Defense/Military Geo-Strategic Trend

China’s Elderly Population to Reach 400 million in 2035

China has become an aging society. It is estimated that the number of elderly people over 60 will reach 400 million in 15 years, accounting for nearly 30 percent of the population. Some organizations predict that the labor force will shrink substantially in the future. Statistics show that there were 14.65 million newborn babies nationwide last year. The birth rate dropped to about 10 per thousand. It is projected that, in ten years, it will further drop to less than 11 million births every year. After the “two-child policy” was adopted, there was no peak in the number of births.

Zheng Gongcheng, a Chinese scholar, said at a recent forum that the process has been accelerating. It is expected that by 2035, China will be considered a “super-aged society.” The average annual increase in the elderly population is about 10 million, and the total will reach about 400 million by then. The number of the elderly population, that is, those over 80 years old, will increase by more than 1 million annually.

A country is defined by the United Nations as “aging” if the percentage of those over 65 exceeds 7 percent; it is considered “aged” if it exceeds 14 percent, and “super-aged” when it is over 20 percent. In 2011, the weighted average of the percentage of the global aging population was 8.1 percent, indicating that the world has entered the era of aging.

Source: Radio Free Asia, November 14, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/elderly-11142020091031.html

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Beijing Issues Joint Operations Guideline for Chinese Military

On November 13, the Central Military Commission (CMC), the Chinese Communist regime’s top military command group, issued the “Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Joint Operations Guideline (Trial Version).”

The “Guideline” aims to build the PLA into a world-class army force, with a focus on the establishment of a system of laws and regulations for joint operations. It attempts to answer the “important questions of ‘what wars to fight and how to fight.’” The goal is to strengthen the preparedness for the wars.

The “Guideline” is supposed to be the top-level regulation of the Chinese military. It focuses on some fundamental issues of implementing joint operations, including unifying operational strategies, defining rights and responsibilities, and directing operations. It also sets out to clarify “important principles, requirements and procedures for join operation command, combat preparedness, national defense mobilization, and political work.”

The CMC asked that the “Guideline” be used as the base for organizing and implementing joint operations and joint training, so as to improve the ability to win.

Source: People’s Daily, November 14, 2020
http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/html/2020-11/14/nw.D110000renmrb_20201114_2-01.htm

Briefings | | |   Defense/Military

200,000 Chinese Journalists Passed the “Xi Thought” Exam

At the end of 2019, Chinese authorities ordered journalists to pass an exam featuring Xi Jinping’s speeches. According to the National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA), as of October 30, 2020, a total of 205,000 Chinese journalists had passed the “Xi Thought” exam and obtained a passport-sized Chinese journalist ID card with gold letters against a red background.

Cheng Yizhong, a senior Chinese media person who participated in the founding of Southern Metropolis Daily and Beijing News, told Radio Free Asia that this shows that China now has high confidence in its propaganda outlets and this has nothing to do its press freedom. “(The Chinese government) is confident that it has reached a state of complete control over the terminal (reporter) and information. … With a press ID card, it is easier to maintain control.”

According to the announcement of the NPPA, a Chinese journalist’s ID is good for a term of five years, contingent on annual reviews. The press ID’s can only be issued by news organizations that the government certifies.

RFA also interviewed a young man surnamed Li, who completed his master’s degree in journalism in the United States and chose to work in China’s state media. For Li, taking the press card exam is a career development requirement for which he had no choice. Li showed a screenshot of his phone and repeated the exam questions and standardized answers.

Question: As General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized, what is the most basic principle of news and public opinion work?
Answer: The Party’s leadership over news and public opinion work.

Question: As Xi Jinping emphasized, what is the basic guidance for news and public opinion?
Answer: Unity, stability, and positive propaganda.

Question: What should cyberspace be?
Answer: A new space for the Party to build consensus.

In 2020, according to data from the U.S. non-profit organization the Committee to Protect Journalists, China is the country that has the largest number of imprisoned journalists in the world. In the annual World Press Freedom Index report from Reporters Without Borders, China ranked fourth to the last around the world. The number is even higher than in dictatorship regimes such as North Korea. The report also mentioned that if Chinese journalists had the right to report freely, the COVID-19 pandemic could have been avoided, or at least it would not have come to be as tragic as it is now.

Source: Radio Free Asia, November 6, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/meiti/jt-11062020095028.html

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

Beijing Punishes Chinese People for Accessing Overseas Social Media

In recent years, while the Chinese Communist regime has an iron grip on domestic websites and social media, it has punished netizens who use VPN software to circumvent the Internet fire wall and express themselves on foreign social media such as Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube. The suppression it uses includes home visits from the police to issue warnings, deletion of posts and closure of accounts, and imprisonment for those who publish unfavorable comments about the government.

The court may soon hear the case of Shen Liangqing, a former prosecutor and human rights activist in Anhui Province. Last year, the authorities arrested him on suspicion of “disturbing the peace.” The evidence against him in the indictment involves his comments on Twitter and Facebook.

According to the information provided by the website of Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch, the indictment claimed that between 2017 and May 2019 when he was arrested, Shen Liangqing used information networks and software to post articles on overseas social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, attracting more than 20,000 followers. The indictment also stated that some of Shen’s posts were “false information” in that they “distorted” historical events and socially sensitive topics to attack and disrupt the normal social order. The indictment added that there were 42 pieces of this kind of information on Twitter, with a total of 470,000 clicks. On Facebook, 13 pieces of the aforementioned content were reposted 16 times and liked 130 times.

A well-known netizen and human rights activist with an account name “xiucaijianghu,” whose real name is Wu Bin, from Huzhou, Zhejiang, has been arrested and punished for “spreading rumors” and “disturbing the peace.” His Weibo and WeChat accounts have been suspended many times. So was his Twitter account. On March 24 this year, the authorities of Zhouzhou city of Hunan province took “xiucaijianghu” away due to his on-line comments, and he lost contact. He said on his new Twitter account in September this year: “The government forcibly closed my Twitter account using my mobile phone. One hundred thousand followers and ten years of tweets disappeared.”

A Chinese student with the surname Luo studied in the United States in 2018. He was detained after his return to China in 2019 because he posted satirical content about Xi Jinping and he was later charged with “disturbing the peace” and sentenced to half a year. The case reportedly attracted the attention of a few US lawmakers, including Republican Senator Ben Sasse and Marco Rubio. Sasse said, “This is what ruthless and paranoid totalitarianism looks like.”

In July of this year a Chinese student, who was studying in Melbourne, Australia, used humorous language and pictures to ridicule the Chinese authorities on Twitter. The police in China constantly harassed her family members, and her father was even taken to the police station to be interrogated. In addition to receiving a direct call from the Chinese police and being forced to surrender her Twitter account’s password, she also received death threats.

Chinese netizens may also be punished for simply using VPN to browse overseas websites or use overseas social media. According to a report from “Bitter Winter,” a European online magazine focusing on religious freedom and human rights in China, on May 19 this year, the police in Ankang city of Shaanxi province issued an administrative warning and a fine to a man for accessing the overseas Internet using circumvention software.

Source: Voice of America, November 10, 2020
https://www.voachinese.com/a/Chinese-authorities-punish-citizens-for-retweeting-or-reposting-on-foreign-social-media-20201110/5653617.html

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

LTN: China’s Control over the Video Game Market Brings Greater Risks than TikTok

Major Taiwanese news network Liberty Times Network (LTN) recently reported that U.S. information security specialists and the U.S. think tank Center for a New American Security (CNAS) pointed out Chinese technology companies pose a bigger threat than the damage that comes from using TikTok. In the past ten years, Chinese tech giant Tencent invested in or acquired multiple major world-class video game makers like Activision Blizzard, Riot Games, Epic Games and Supercell. Americans spend much more time on the video games these vendors have developed than they do on TikTok and WeChat. The Chinese “soft power” reflected in these video games includes monitoring user behavior, blocking players with certain political positions and controlling video game story lines. Beijing may actually be able to read the content on millions of the computers that run these games. China can also obtain a player’s personal information as well as payment channel information. A number of experts suggested Washington should take immediate action before it’s too late.

Source: LTN, October 31, 2020
https://bit.ly/2IeOJfr

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology US-China Relations

British Intelligence Agencies Are Focusing on China

Well-known Chinese news site Sina (NASDAQ: SINA) recently reported that, based on British media reports, UK intelligence agencies MI5, MI6 and GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) are establishing a new program that is currently hiring “mandarin linguists.” The goal of the program is to respond to the “intelligence threats from China.” GCHQ job postings have been listed on its website and the employees will be stationed in London, or Cheltenham, where the GCHQ monitoring and surveillance center is located. GCHQ is one of the largest linguist employers in Britain, and this new effort requires the applicants to perform “accurate analyses” and discover the “insights of the intelligence information.” They will be part of the “core functions” of the intelligence work. China’s intelligence operations now have a very large scale, and the British intelligence community is considered “far behind.” So in addition to hiring more hands, the new program also plans for a new round of technology upgrades. The British intelligence community is set to deepen the cooperation with the “Five Eyes” alliance member countries as well as the European Union.

Source: Sina, October 30, 2020
https://m.us.sina.com/gb/finance/huanqiu/2020-10-30/detail-ihacmqme8729613.shtml

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend