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Briefings - 269. page

China Reports Continued Growth of “Belt and Road” Projects

According to its state media People’s Daily, from January to July, China made 423.65 billion yuan (US$61.23 billion) in non-financial direct investments overseas, a year-over-year decrease of 2.1 percent. The value of newly signed foreign contracted projects was 855.67 billion yuan (US$123.66 billion), an increase of 4.3 percent. The completed business turnover was 491.26 billion yuan (US$71.0 billion), 10.5 percent lower than the same period last year. 159,000 workers were dispatched for foreign contracts. At the end of July, 644,000 Chinese workers were still abroad.

From January to July, China’s non-financial direct investment in “Belt and Road” countries totaled US$10.27 billion, a year-over-year increase of 28.9 percent, accounting for 17 percent of total outward investment in the same period. The contract value of newly signed projects in “Belt and Road” countries amounted to US$67.18 billion, and a completed turnover of US$40.43 billion.

Outward direct investment was sent mainly to leasing and business services, manufacturing, and wholesale and retail industries. Leasing and business services increased 18.1 percent and wholesale and retail investment 43.2 percent. The newly signed contracts in construction, petrochemical, and water conservancy construction projects have shown high growth.

Source: People’s Daily, August 21, 2020
http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/html/2020-08/21/nw.D110000renmrb_20200821_2-01.htm

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

Scholars Believe China’s Digital Currency a Return to Planned Economy

China’s state-owned banks such as the Agricultural Bank of China and China Construction Bank are testing the operation of digital currencies. Scholars believe that the Chinese model of the digital currency actually enables the central government to exert full control over personal wealth, which means returning to the era of a planned economy.

Si Ling, a financial scholar from Shandong University told Radio Free Asia (RFA), “The purpose of China’s vigorous promotion of digital currency is to manage its fiscal revenue in a more organized manner. With the deterioration of Sino-US relations and China’s foreign trade situation, the government will focus on fiscal revenue. In the past, many people used cash transactions to evade tax collection.”

Si believes that, if the Chinese government fully implements digital currency, “transactions will be completely under government supervision, which is conducive to the growth of government revenue. If digital currency is implemented, it may be a public-private partnership in the 21st century. In other words, private wealth can become public owned overnight, if the government chooses to do so.”

Dong Yongqi, a businessman from Shanxi province, told RFA that once the Chinese people start to use digital currency, their personal interests and their privacy will be infringed upon. “For the common people, it will do more harm than good. Most people read the propaganda and don’t understand the invasion of personal privacy that occurs with digital currency. The digital currency is the preparation for returning to the planned economy.”

Dong discussed the fundamental difference between China’s digital currency and that of Western democracies. “The digital currency of a free country by nature uses the blockchain technology and is decentralized, but our country’s digital currency has been centralized. The central bank is in charge.”

Chinese economist Hu Xingdou told RFA that China’s so-called digital currency is not a digital currency in the real sense: “It should be called electronic currency. It is very different from digital currency in terms of privacy and traceability. In other words, digital currency protects personal privacy. Other people, even the government, control no information.”

Caijinglengyan, an overseas social media account, commented that China’s digital currency is to prepare for the planned economy! Its characteristic is the control over currency use and material distribution. One can consider digital currency such as food stamps, meat coupons, travel passes, transportation documents, and permits for big-ticket purchases in the digital age.

Source: Radio Free Asia, August 17, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/ql1-08172020060447.html

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

CCP Offers High Monetary Awards to Those Who Report on Banned Religious Groups

Bitter Winter, a media focusing on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) human rights violations, reported that, in the past several months, several provinces in China have offered monetary awards, some even as high as 100,000 yuan (about US $14,000), to encourage people to report on religious groups that the CCP has banned, including Falun Gong, the Church of Almighty God (CAG), the Shouters, the All Sphere Church, and others. The CCP calls these religious groups “Xie Jiao,” or cult in English.

The CCP suppresses these groups because they refuse to submit to the CCP’s control, they have grown rapidly, and they have a large number of members, which the CCP views as a threat to its rule. The CCP charges members of these groups as criminals, according to Article 300 of the Chinese Criminal Code, and can sentence members to three to seven years in prison.

Zouping City, Shandong Province: In July, the Political and Legal Affairs Commission of Zouping City adopted its “Award-winning Reporting Measures for Cracking Down on Xie Jiao.” Anyone who reports on CAG members or Falun Gong practitioners may receive a maximum award of 2,500 yuan.

According to the Measures, the scope of the behavior being reported includes using the Internet to produce and disseminate the materials of the above-mentioned religious groups; producing and disseminating religious leaflets, pictures, slogans, newspapers, and publications; hanging religious banners and posters in public places; and publishing and printing publications that preach religion.

Hainan Province: On June 15, the Public Security Department of Hainan Province issued the “Notice on Rewarding Those Who Report Information on Xie Jiao Illegal and Criminal Activities,” offering a maximum reward of 100,000 yuan.

Guangdong Province: On May 1, the Public Security Department of Guangdong officially adopted the “Trial Measures for Rewarding Reports Involving Xie Jiao Illegal and Criminal Activities,” offering a maximum reward of 100,000 yuan. Nanfang Daily reported on June 17 that several Falun Gong practitioners from Guangdong Province were reported and arrested for preaching Falun Gong or distributing Falun Gong information cards to local residents during the epidemic.

The Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region: A local official told Bitter Winter that, in October last year, the local government offered a maximum rewarded of 10,000 yuan for religious members and 50,000 yuan for out-of-town missionaries, once the missionary is arrested.

Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province: A believer of the Three-Self Church, a CCP controlled church system in China, told Bitter Winter that in mid-June, at the conference for local Religious Affairs Bureau officials and National Security Brigade captains, the CCP issued a document demanding a crack down on the CAG in three consecutive years and asked Three-Self believers to report CAG members.

To incite as many as possible to participate in the campaign to suppress banned religious groups, in addition to offering high monetary awards, the CCP also conducts omnipresent anti-xie-jiao propaganda campaigns across China.

During the past few months, despite the epidemic outbreak, the CCP has continued to arrest members of the banned religious groups.

Source: Bitter Winter, July 30, 2020

CCP Offers High Monetary Awards to Those Who Report on Banned Religious Groups

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

4 Hearts in 10 Days: China’s ‘On Demand’ Organ Bank Raises Concerns of Forced Harvesting

Recently, The Epoch Times reported a few “unbelievable” organ transplants in China.

Sun Lingling, a 24-year-old Chinese national, fell ill in Japan with a rare autoimmune disease that led to irreversible heart damage. In mid-June, her medical team flew her to China’s Wuhan Union Hospital on a chartered flight. The Chinese doctors gathered four matching hearts in the course of 10 days and used the last one to conduct the surgery. Sun recovered and was able to eat on her own.

Chinese newspapers reported Sun’s story with dramatic headlines, such as “A life or death race.” The Chinese embassy in Japan, which arranged Sun’s transportation to Wuhan, called the surgery “legendary” and touted it as a show of China-Japan friendship and cooperation.

Sun’s first matching heart came on June 16 from Wuhan, but doctors found the health condition not up to par and gave it up. The second heart came from nearby Hunan Province three days later, but Sun developed a high fever by then and could not have the surgery. On June 25, doctors got two more hearts: one from a female in Wuhan, and another one from a male in Guangzhou Province. The Chinese media report said they chose the latter because it had “better heart functions.”

The willingness to donate an organ is low among Chinese. Even in a country with a large base of those willing to donate, receiving four matching heats in 10 days is unusual. A professor at the Surgery and Heart Transplantation Department, Tel Aviv University, Israel, said Sun’s case is “beyond explanation.” “Rather, it follows an ‘on demand system.’”

There are more of these “unbelievable” cases.

China has also performed at least six double-lung transplants on COVID-19 patients since late February, at least two of which took place in Wuhan. The donors of both lungs, of course, could not survive. Chinese hospitals gave little information about where the organs came from.

In his book Bloody Harvest, David Kilgour, a former Canadian lawyer and member of the Canadian parliament, cited a Taiwanese organ tourist who was provided with eight kidneys during his two separate trips to Shanghai over the course of eight months—until his body accepted the final one.

There have been investigations including from the U.S. Congress and the E.U. Parliament indicating that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has conducted forced organ harvesting, removing vital organs from prisoners of conscience who were still alive, and then selling these organs for profit.

In June 2019, the London-based independent People’s Tribunal concluded “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the Chinese regime was targeting prisoners of conscience for their organs. The main source of organs was practitioners of Falun Gong who the CCP has persecuted severely for the past two decades.

Such practices are indicative of a transplant industry that “has a large pool, or stable, of political and religious prisoners that are already tissue-typed for transplant,” said Ethan Gutmann, a China analyst who authored the book “The Slaughter” about China’s illicit organ trade. He said Sun’s case exemplified the problems with the country’s transplant industry.

Source: The Epoch Times, August 11, 2020
https://www.theepochtimes.com/4-hearts-in-10-days-chinas-on-demand-organ-bank-raises-concerns-of-forced-harvesting_3457910.html

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

CCP Party School Professor Criticizes the CCP

On August 17, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Party School announced that it has expelled Cai Xia, a retired Party School Professor, from the CCP and discontinued her retirement benefits because she “has serious political issues and made speeches that damaged the country’s reputation.” Cai, who currently resides in the U.S., responded with the following statement on her twitter account: “I have completely decoupled from this gang-like party! They expelled me from the party (which is a good thing for me).”

Cai Xia worked for the Party School for over 40 years. Considered as a liberal intellectual and party insider, Cai is known for her direct criticism of Xi Jinping and the CCP, which she expressed in recent years. Below is a list of examples.

1. In February 2016, Cai Xia criticized Beijing’s Qianlong Wang and China Youth Daily for their wild attacks against Ren Zhiqiang, a Chinese real estate tycoon. Ren openly challenged Xi’s statement that “The party’s media must bear the party as their last name [Editor’s note: party media must serve the party]. Ren disappeared from the public for over one month. Cai said that the media attacks were against the party’s constitution, blocked the communication channel, and damaged the party’s unity.

2. In March 2020, an open letter addressed to the Congress and State Council appeared on the Internet. More than 50 intellectuals co-signed the letter, requesting the implementation of the rights of freedom of speech granted by the Constitution. Cai Xia was one of the co-signers.

3. On May 30, Cia Xia’s letter on the Hong Kong Security Law was posted on Twitter overseas. Cai wrote: “…The CCP is now destroying Hong Kong’s status as a free trade port and destroying Hong Kong’s status as one of the world’s three largest financial centers. What does it mean? It means that the CCP is challenging the world…The CCP is an enemy of the whole world, especially the enemy of human civilization. The CCP is the enemy of mankind.”

4. Ren Zhiqiang was arrested in March 2020 again for openly criticizing Xi Jinping for covering up the pandemic. Cai wrote an open letter and said that Xi Jinping has turned the CCP into a “mob-like” party. In her letter, she accused Xi of promoting personal worship, suppressing freedom of speech inside and outside the party, consolidating political and military power under his own control, empowering SOEs to merge with and eventually overtake the private companies, using the anti-corruption campaign to weed out and replace his opponents, suppressing criticism and different opinions, demanding absolute loyalty, exercising terrorist control over the party and turning the entire party into a political zombie.

5. On August 17, in her interview with Radio Free Asia after the CCP announced it would dismiss her from the party, Cai said she has no intention of being part of the CCP gang and that she is happy to return to the ranks of the (normal) people. She said that inside the CCP, there is a group who want to replace Xi Jinping but under the CCP’s totalitarian control no one wants to take the risk. Cai said she can’t go back to China because she has broken a hidden an unspoken rule in China that “one can criticize the party but not Xi Jinping.”

Source:
1. CCP Party School, August 17, 2020
https://www.ccps.gov.cn/xyyw/202008/t20200817_142799.shtml
2. Cai Xia Twitter, August 17, 2020


3. Radio Free Asia, July 24, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/pinglun/404gongheguo/404-07242020124812.html
4. Sound of Hope, June 1, 2020
https://www.soundofhope.org/post/385155

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Shanghai’s Police Chief Ousted

Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) disciplinary authority is investigating Gong Daoan, deputy mayor of Shanghai city and head of the city’s Public Security Bureau. The website of the CCP’s Commission for Discipline Inspection did not specify the date of the probe. However, according to Jiefang Daily, the mouthpiece newspaper of Shanghai’s CCP committee, Gong’s last public appearance was on July 31, when he participated in a national video conference that the State Council held.

Ranking number six among the eight deputy mayors of Shanghai, Gong is in charge of public security, judicial administration, stability maintenance, and traffic safety. He is the head of the Public Security Bureau, the Judicial Bureau and the Municipal Prison Administration.

Born in November 1964, Gong Daoan is the first deputy ministerial official in Shanghai that has been ousted since the 19th CCP National Congress. According to media reports, he is also the third senior public security official under investigation this year. The other two were Sun Lijun, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Public Security, and Deng Huilin, Deputy Mayor and head of the Public Security Bureau of Chongqing city. All three individuals were investigated for “serious disciplinary violations.”

Source: Voice of America, August 18, 2020
https://www.voachinese.com/a/deputy-mayor-shanghai-director-municipal-public-security-bureau-under-investigation-20200818/5548113.html

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

China Sends Soft Signals to the U.S.

An unverified source recently disclosed that the CCP leadership has decided to adopt “three soft and three hardline policies” amid the contention between the US and China. “Three soft” means China needs to show a soft stance towards the U.S. and the west and take a soft approach on China’s own actions. “Three hardline policies” refers to displaying a hard grip domestically, continuing a hard propaganda campaign and holding a hard position against Hong Kong.

Recent signals from senior CCP officials and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also appear to indicate that the CCP wants to take a soft stance against the U.S. On Wednesday August 12, in an interview with Chinese media, Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng said that the next few months will be critical for Sino-US relations and that the U.S. and China need to work with each other no matter how difficult and complicated the issues are. He said he wants China to “stay focused without being swayed by any extreme forces, to keep to the right direction of the bilateral relationship and to prevent it from spiraling out of control or getting derailed.” He said he is ready to have a dialog with the U.S. Earlier this month, Yang Jiechi, director of the Office of Foreign Affairs, published an article on Xinhua calling for a dialog between the U.S. and China and the expansion of a mutually beneficial cooperation in a number of fields. Hua Chunying, Spokesperson for China, stated the following on her twitter account on August 8, “Respect history, look to the future, and firmly safeguard and stabilize China-US relations.” As to the news related to U.S. sanctions of 11 Hong Kong officials, CCTV aired the news which lasted about 90 seconds. The People’s Daily used a corner space of a page to “strongly condemn” the sanctions that the U.S. imposed. This is in sharp contrast to CCTV ‘s airing 12 consecutive segments of counter-attacks after the U.S. Senate passed the “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act” in November of last year.

A Chinese official media reporter broke the news to Radio Free Asia that the Chinese media have received instructions to stop posting the attacks on the U.S. that have been going on for several months and to prohibit verbal abuse and attacks on the U.S., especially the use of rumors to attack the U.S., so as not to trigger a greater backlash. If they violate the order, the Publicity Department could strip them of their salary and bonus pay.

Source: Secret China, August 14, 2020
https://www.secretchina.com/news/b5/2020/08/14/942894.html

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

Hong Kong Apple Daily Circulation and Stock Price Jumped after Founder’s Arrest

After Hong Kong police arrested Jimmy Lai, the founder of Next Digital, and several other high-level officials for violating the “Hong Kong National Security Act,” the Hong Kong people launched an action to buy Apple Daily, a newspaper under the Next Digital Group. On Tuesday, August 11, Hongkongers could be seen lining up on the street late at night to buy the Apple Daily newspaper. Many people bought dozens of copies and let other people take some free of charge or distribute them to their neighbors. People stated that they would buy the newspaper even if it was a blank sheet of paper. On Tuesday, total circulation for Apple Daily jumped from its normal 70,000 to half a million copies. The front page of the paper reads, “Apple Daily Must Fight On.” At the same time, Next Digital stock also jumped more than 330 percent in just two days.

Source: Radio Free Asia, August 11, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/htm/hk-apple-08112020065417.html

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics