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Top Apple Supplier Foxconn Will Build Two New Factories in India

Well-known Chinese news site Sina recently reported that Foxconn just announce that it plans to build two new factories in India. In the meantime, the company will also expand its current factories in India. Foxconn currently has two factories there. The goal of the new factories is to manufacture more iPhones. Foxconn’s chief of Indian operations Josh Foulger said that the strategy is to avoid putting all of its eggs in one basket. The factories that replace the ones in China must meet the criteria of being competitive. The Indian government is implementing policies similar to China’s in order to ease the process of establishing new factories for foreign investors. Foxconn opened its first Indian factory in Sri City in 2015. According to undisclosed sources, Foxconn has started the manufacturing of high-end iPhone models in India. The assembly lines for now can produce a maximum of one million iPhones. Foxconn also makes other smart phones in India. For example, it manufactures three times more Xiaomi phones than iPhones. Despite long preparation, at the moment it is still challenging to make high-end iPhones in India due to workers lacking the required skills.

Source: Sina, August 30, 2019
https://tech.sina.com.cn/it/2019-08-30/doc-iicezueu2270971.shtml

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend Information/Technology

Huawei Founder: Harmony OS Won’t Work on Phones Anytime Soon

Major Taiwanese newspaper China Times recently reported that Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei made a comment not long ago on Huawei’s much hyped operating system called Harmony OS. Ren stated, in a BBC interview on September 6, that “it’s unclear” how Huawei’s natively developed operating system Harmony can be migrated to phones. It may need a few years of research and development. Under the U.S. sanction, Huawei runs the risk of losing the capability of using Google’s Android operating system for phones. According to Ren, Huawei’s Harmony OS was designed for low-latency Internet of Things (IoT) types of use cases, such as watches and TVs. His position is different from what Huawei Consumer Business CEO Yu Chengdong said on a number of occasions in the past several months. However, Ren criticized the United States, saying that Huawei cannot be blamed for the failure that the U.S. has suffered in leading the communications industry. He said, “The U.S. took the wrong path on communications technology.”

Source: China Times, September 7, 2019
https://www.chinatimes.com/realtimenews/20190907002727-260410?chdtv

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology US-China Relations

China’s Central Bank to Release $126 Billion to Boost Economy

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) announced on Friday, September 6, that it would lower the reserve requirement ratio for financial institutions by 0.5 percent, effective September 16. China’s central bank said the move was to support the real economy and reduce social financing costs. The reserve requirement ratio is the minimum amount of reserves that must be held by a commercial bank.

In addition, the PBOC will lower the reserve ratio of 1 percent for the urban commercial banks. These measures are to be implemented on October 15 and November 15, respectively, with a 0.5 percent reduction each time. In other words, the PBOC will have successively lowered the reserve ratio for urban commercial banks three times, with a total reduction of 1.5 percent.

It is estimated that this round of ratio reductions will release funds of 900 billion yuan ($126 billion).

Earlier this year, the PBOC already implemented two rounds of reductions: a comprehensive ratio reduction of 0.5 percent in January and another 0.5 percent reduction for small and medium-sized banks between May and July.

Source: Radio Free Asia, September 6, 2019
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/bank-09062019112953.html

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

A Chinese University to Introduce Extensive Use of Facial Recognition Technology on Campus

Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine (NJUCM), a university located in Nanjing city in China’s Jiangsu province, announced that it will adopt a “pilot program” in the new semester of 2019 to install a facial recognition access control system at the school gate, the entrance to the student dormitory, the library, and the laboratory building. The school said that, by storing student and faculty information in a back-end database, students and faculty can swiftly pass the gate access control by “showing their faces.” which is more convenient and safer than the legacy system.

The surveillance cameras in the classroom, said the school, will automatically capture the student’s faces. In addition to helping improve the attendance rate, the system can also monitor the student’s class performance, including whether they are listening, how many times they look up (to the teacher), whether they are playing with their phone, and whether they doze off. NJUCM said that the intention is to remedy the situation of students skipping classes, being late, or leaving early. It will even eliminate the practice of hiring others to take classes.

Regarding the concerns over students’ privacy, NJUCM said it has consulted with the police and legal authorities. As the classroom is a public place, there is no issue of an infringement on privacy.

Chiu E-ling, secretary-general of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights (TAHR), pointed out that this kind of comprehensive surveillance of students violates their human rights and is unnecessary. Chiu also questions how the collected data will be used.

Source: Radio Free Asia, September 3, 2019
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/Safety-09032019141214.html

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

China’s Former Central Banker Suggested Renminbi Globalization to Solve World Market Problem

On August 10, 2019, at a 40 person forum on China’s financial system, Zhou Xiaochuan, the former Chairman of China’s People’s Bank, stated that trade protectionism, the development of modern technology, and currency-based economic sanctions have caused significant twists in the global market system.

Zhou pointed out that the first global market twist came from trade conflicts between countries. A trade war can last a long time and cause obvious twists in the distribution of global resources.

The second one is due to the development of technology. Some IT companies pursue a “winner takes all” or “winner takes the biggest share” result. They therefore burn a tremendous amount of money to claim that market share and increase traffic. Zhou suggested fair competition as the solution.

The third one is that the U.S., due to its control of the U.S. dollar, uses currency as its means to impose economic sanctions. Zhou argued that the globalization of the Renminbi will solve this problem.

Source: Sina, August 11, 2019
https://finance.sina.com.cn/money/bank/yhpl/2019-08-11/doc-ihytcern0062585.shtml

 

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Chinese Government’s Disinformation and anti-American Propaganda: On the First Day of School!

On September 2, the first day of the new school year, the Chinese official media again pushed the party’s ideological education in the form of the “First Class of the New Semester” program. A popular China Central Television host called on the students across the country to love and care for the Chinese national flag as much as they love life.

Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported that, on September 2, teachers in some schools taught the students that the United States has manufactured the Hong Kong “independence movement” so as to stop China’s rise.

Mr. Xie, a legal professional working in Beijing, told RFA that the Ministry of Education mandated ideological education sessions, from the kindergartens to the universities, on the first day of school. Even kindergarten children aged between three and six were asked to memorize and recite this stuff.

Another RFA interviewee said that the Ministry of Education issued an official document that required every school and every family to organize the students to watch (the program). Some schools even used the Hong Kong situation as the subject of the first class of the semester. Now the government characterizes the Hong Kong situation as a Hong Kong independence movement. School teachers do not know the truth about Hong Kong. They can only accept the order that the Ministry of Education issued.

Source: Radio Free Asia, September 2, 2019
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/education-09022019093615.html

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

JP Morgan to Include China in Its Benchmark Bond Index

Starting on February 28, 2020, Chinese government’s debt will start to be part of the Government Bond Index-Emerging Markets (GBI-EM), a benchmark emerging-markets index that JPMorgan Chase & Co. will manage. The process of inclusion will be completed over 10 months.

The total capital of GBI-EM, which tracks global emerging markets, is approximately $226 billion, among which some $202 billion will be tracked in the GBI-EM global diversified benchmark. The Chinese government bonds will be capped at 10 percent of the index.

Earlier in April, Bloomberg Barclays, another index provider, began adding Chinese bonds to its global benchmark.

Source: The Paper, September 4, 2019
https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_4335465

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

Facing Risks and Challenges, Xi Emphasizes a “Fighting Spirit”

Recently, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping delivered a speech at the Party School of the CCP Central Committee. The speech centered on the theme of “fighting” or “battling.” He said that the major battles during China’s development will be no less and no more complicated [than previous battles], and this includes Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan issues.

An official from Xinhua News Agency reported that Xi’s speech was given on September 3rd at the Party School, at the opening ceremony of the training session for young and middle-aged CCP cadres. Xi said that cadres should “promote the fighting spirit and enhance fighting capabilities” and that “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is not easy. It cannot be achieved by beating gongs and sounding drums. A great fight must be put up to achieve a great dream.”

Xi Jinping declared [the need] to fight against and defeat four major risks and challenges. They include “endangering the leadership of the CCP and the Chinese socialist system, endangering China’s core interests and major principles, endangering the fundamental interests of the Chinese people, and endangering China’s goal of ‘two hundred years’ and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”

Source: Central News Agency, September 3, 2019
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/201909030318.aspx

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics