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Briefings - 36. page

LTN: Taiwan’s Proportion of Exports to China Reaches 22-Year Low

According to Major Taiwanese media network Liberty Times Network (LTN), Taiwan’s Ministry of Finance recently announced that the proportion of Taiwan’s exports bound for China (including Hong Kong) in the first four months of this year dropped to 30.7 percent – the lowest level seen in 22 years. LTN reported that global supply chains are diversifying amid China’s economic weakness and tensions between China and the U.S.

For many years, Taiwan’s proportion of exports to China has hovered around 40 percent. It’s worth noting that Taiwan’s exports of semiconductors and other electronic components to China are in particularly steep decline. Taiwan’s Ministry of Finance explained that, in addition to the slow recovery of China’s internal demand, the supply chain for digital electronics and other commodities has shifted outside of China, thus reducing Taiwan’s exports to China.

From January to April of this year, Taiwan’s overall exports increased by 10.6 percent, exports to the United States increased by 64 percent, and exports to ASEAN countries increased by 25 percent. Taiwan’s proportion of exports bound for the United States reached 23.5 percent, while exports to ASEAN countries reached 19.5 percent of Taiwan’s total exports.

Encouraged by U.S. customers, Taiwanese companies have been diversifying their supply chains ever since China-US tensions began to worsen starting in 2010. They have been diversifying their production locations by moving some of their production capacity from China back to Taiwan or to other locations such as the United States, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere.

Source: LTN, May 9, 2024
https://ec.ltn.com.tw/article/breakingnews/4666984

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

DW Chinese: EU Enterprise Confidence in China Continues Decline

Deutsche Welle Chinese Edition recently reported on the 2024 Business Confidence Survey just released by the European Chamber of Commerce. The survey showed that uncertainty for European companies in China has increased due to China’s economic slowdown as well as the Chinese government’s prioritization of domestic companies over foreign companies and its unclear regulations.

Jens Eskelund, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, said that companies are beginning to realize that low demand [within China] may persist for a long time. He also said that companies saw other countries emerging and becoming competitors that China must take seriously.

More than one-third of survey respondents observed overcapacity within their respective sectors of the Chinese economy. Although China reopened its economy [by lifting COVID controls] in early 2023, the survey results indicate a continued decline in market confidence.

The development of European companies in China is hindered by structural problems in China’s economy. These include weak domestic demand, increasing overcapacity, ongoing real estate difficulties, market access issues, regulatory barriers, and other obstacles. More than half of surveyed companies reported China’s economic slowdown as a top challenge, a significant increase over previous years’ survey results. Around 52 percent of companies surveyed plan to cut costs; about a quarter of such cost cutting will be achieved through layoffs.

The Chinese government has been sending mixed signals to foreign companies as it pursues economic development while simultaneously tightening regulations related to national security and safety.

Source: DW Chinese, May 10, 2024
https://p.dw.com/p/4fhW1

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

Chinese Communist Youth League Reports Membership of 74 Million

On May 3rd, the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League announced that, as of the end of December 2023, there were 4.167 million Communist Youth League members and 4.316 million Communist Youth League organizations across the country. In 2023, a total of 4.605 million new members were recruited.

The youth league has 3,000 local committees, 193,000 grassroot-level committees, and 4.12 million branches. There were 1.905 million school organizations with 38.245 million members; 910,000 enterprise organizations with 7.21 million members; 360,000 organizations in government agencies and public institutions, along with 4.419 million members; 942,000 organizations in urban streets, townships, residential communities, and administrative villages, with 21.737 million members; and 199,000 organizations within societal groups and other fields, with 2.556 million members.

Source: Xinhua, May 3, 2024
http://www.news.cn/politics/20240503/e022942dc1874626b10576898a796479/c.html

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

The WOIPFG Submits List of 81,340 Individuals Suspected of Persecuting Falun Gong Practitioners to FBI

In April 2024 the “World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG)” submitted a list of “parties suspected of being involved in the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners” to the FBI. The list named 81,340 individuals, including 9,011 officials, suspected of involvement in organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners. These 81,340 individuals are affiliated with various levels of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) committees, Political and Legal Affairs Committees, the “610 Office” anti-Falun-Gong security agency, military, armed police, public security, procuratorate, courts, justice, prison, hospital, and medical center systems.

The WOIPFG was founded in New York on January 20, 2003, to collect and investigate evidence of the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong. Since December 4, 2004, it has released 16 batches of data listing information about alleged persecutors. Wang Zhiyuan, the organization’s chairman, said that the list has a significant impact within the system of mainland China. He gave two examples of officials on the list requesting that their names be removed: One official from China’s Political and Legal Affairs Committee released all illegally detained Falun Gong practitioners within his jurisdiction, and another one did some good deeds [to try and atone for having persecuted Falun Gong practitioners in the past]. The WOIPFG agreed to have their names removed from the list.

Source: Epoch Times, April 28, 2024
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/24/4/28/n14236046.htm

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics Social Stability

Yiyang County Policing Model: Frequent Village Visits and Small Grids for Control

People’s Daily highlighted the policing model used by the Yiyang County Public Security Bureau in Jiangxi Province, praising it as “a model for the new era” adhering to the communist party’s “Fengqiao Experience” (using the populace to monitor and control the populace).

The policing model used in Yiyang County is called “Big Visits + Small Grids.” Police officers perform frequent visits to the villages assigned to them. They organize large-scale visits called “Meeting Police in Every Village,” where police officers from police stations patrol and visit their assigned villages at least once a day, officers from the bureau hold discussion sessions at their assigned villages at least once a month, and all police officers return to their hometown villages during holidays.

The county police utilize the Internet to implement “grid control.” They have established over 1,100 WeChat groups covering more than 180,000 residents. In addition, they have established a “Police-Community Integration” system, dividing the entire county into 19 large “policing grids” and 51 small “policing grids.” All these “policing grids” are integrated into 123 smaller “Internet grids.” The Internet grid controllers, who are familiar with the “people, land, events, and relationships” in their grids, can respond in a timely manner to public demand and report major incidents immediately. According to People’s Daily, this new grassroots governance model ensures that “people move within the net, events are taken care of within the grid, and both major and minor issues are managed within the grid.”

Source: People’s Daily, May 7, 2024
http://society.people.com.cn/n1/2024/0507/c1008-40230351.html

Briefings | | |   @CS Government/Politics Social Stability

Trade Volume of 2024 Canton Fair Beats 2023 but is Lower Than 2019 Volume

The 135th Canton Fair (2024 Spring Canton Fair) was held in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, from April 15th to May 5th. The onsite (i.e. non-online) export transactions amounted to $24.7 billion, while online export transactions reached $3.03 billion, totaling $27.7 billion. A total of 246,000 overseas buyers from 215 countries and regions visited the site.

The total export transactions in 2023, including online and on-site, were $25.11 billion. In 2019 (before the COVID pandemic) the total reached $29.73 billion.

Sources:
1. Xinhua, May 5, 2024
http://www.xinhuanet.com/fortune/20240505/5ccabf0fa93840109af17873b9a75eb8/c.html
2. Radio Free Asia, May 8, 2023
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/jingmao/hcm-05082023090035.html

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

X Platform Suspends Many Chinese Accounts That Criticize CCP

Recently, many social media users found their X platform accounts critical of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) suddenly suspended without warning or explanation, and they were unable to appeal.

For example, Yang Caiying, who lives in Japan, said that her account was suspended because she shared information (found on the Internet) about CCP officials who persecuted her family members. Her friend’s X account was also suspended for mentioning some corrupt Chinese officials. Her repeated appeals to X yielded no results. “These days, I appeal twice every day. The first response always comes quickly, citing repeated violations of the rules leading to permanent suspension. My second appeal hardly got any response. I asked X to provide me the tweets supposedly violating their rules, but they didn’t provide the tweets nor did they offer any explanation. Their actions are just like those of the Chinese government.”

A social media user collected information from more than a hundred netizens who reported their accounts being suspended on May 3rd.

People suspect that X has a list of accounts targeted for suspension. The account “Nike in Australia” (Nike在澳洲) said, “R.I.P. I really didn’t expect my account to die on World Press Freedom Day, May 3rd. Perhaps, this platform will become more and more like Weibo. Maybe we’ll have to use puns in our tweets in the future. We all know that he [Elon Musk] went to China for one day, and the ban on use of his car’s [Tesla’s] Full-Self Driving capabilities in China was removed. But when he came back, before sitting for long enough to warm his seat, he started suspending accounts (that the CCP does not like). Apparently, dictatorship can be contagious; for money, so-called ‘values of freedom’ can also be sold.”

Source: Epoch Times, May 7, 2024
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/24/5/7/n14242524.htm

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

VOA on CCP’s Anti-US Propaganda Campaigns

Voice of America has summarized how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has obstructed public awareness of certain international events over the past year by exaggerating, distorting, and confusing the facts.

U.S. college students protest to show the ineffective governance of the United States

Chinese media have extensively covered protests on American campuses. Videos of the protests were shared on major Chinese social media platforms. Some state-level media outlets characterized these protests as expressions of public dissatisfaction with the U.S. government. “Can suppressing students with violence really silence the discontent of the domestic population toward the government?” asked a People’s Liberation Army commentary article on April 26th. On April 29th, the CCP-owned newspaper People’s Daily claimed in a video that American students protested because they “couldn’t stand the double standards of the United States.”

Wang Yaqiu, director of the Freedom House, said that this “ineffective governance” rhetoric has been effective in some developing countries since those countries suffered under Western colonialism and are relatively more receptive to Chinese propaganda.

The Hawaii wildfires as another example of ineffective governance in the United States

In August 2023, wildfires swept through Maui, Hawaii. Chinese “information warriors” promoted a conspiracy theory suggesting that the fires were not natural disasters but rather the result of weather weapon experiments by the U.S. military. A report by NewsGuard found that, from August to September, at least 85 social media and blog accounts spread similar posts and videos claiming that the British Secret Service (MI6) had exposed the U.S. military for deliberate arson on its own territory. NewsGuard believes there is “strong evidence” that Chinese users were behind the dissemination of the false information. Some Weibo users remarked, “A country that claims to be the most developed on Earth can’t even handle a wildfire?”

Israel-Hamas conflict to advance anti-American and anti-Israeli narratives

Ever since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th last year, the Chinese authorities have appeared to maintain a neutral stance on the conflict. On the heavily censored Weibo social media platform, however, commentators and netizens have clearly sided with Hamas and condemned Israel for committing genocide.

“In the Palestinian-Israeli war, it is clear that Israel is the aggressor, but the United States openly supports Israel, providing massive military assistance and not even recognizing Palestine as an independent country… In the Russia-Ukraine war, the United States is playing a completely different role: it is the self-proclaimed savior of Ukraine, demanding guns for guns and cannons for cannons. Why does the United States have such double standards… and how does it switch between the sword of evil and justice so freely?”

Ahmed Aboudouh from the Chatham House believes that China’s narrative “successfully enhances Beijing’s image in non-Western societies and supports its efforts to be seen as a global power.”

Interference in the Taiwanese presidential election via false information

Taiwan held a presidential election earlier this year. During the period before the election, China launched a large-scale hybrid warfare campaign. This included the strengthening of military activities, imposing trade sanctions, and conducting large-scale disinformation campaigns online.

One central theme of the information war narrative was skepticism towards the United States, propagating the ideas that the U.S. would eventually abandon Taiwan, that the U.S. lacks the strength to protect Taiwan, and that the U.S. is the root cause of global conflicts. These narratives were intended to drive a wedge into U.S.-Taiwan relations.

A report by the Taiwan Information Environment Research Center showed that, between 2021 and 2023, 84 different narratives of “skepticism towards the United States” circulated in the Taiwanese media environment. “The CCP is the largest foreign influence source of skepticism towards the United States,” the report stated.

According to a November 2023 opinion poll, these information warfare activities have yielded some results. The trust that Taiwanese people have in the United States decreased by about 10 percentage points from 2021 to 2022. In 2023, this figure reached 33.9 percent.

Source: VOA, May 3, 2024
https://www.voachinese.com/a/7594059.html

Briefings | | |   @CS Government/Politics US-China Relations