The Central News Agency reported that, in the past two months, the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission has closed more than 490,000 illegal accounts and thousands of websites. According to the article, as of February 25, a total of 44.37 million internet messages were cleared, more than 490,000 illegal accounts were closed, and 1,462 registered websites were removed.
Source: Central News Agency, February 27, 2019
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/201902270380.aspx
On the evening of February 25th, at Warner Theatre in Washington DC, the American Troupe of “Festival of Spring” completed the final performance of its global tour. China National Opera & Dance Drama Theater, a subsidiary of the Chinese Ministry of Culture, put together the show of “Festival of Spring.” The presenters included the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council and the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese. The former is also an office under the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department; the latter is a liaison organization between the CCP and the overseas Chinese community.
For the season of 2019, six troupes of the “Festival of Spring” program were reported to have travelled to 29 cities in 16 countries with 33 shows, including Medan (of Indonesia), Barcelona, New York, Nairobi, Suva (of Fiji), Philadelphia, and Washington D.C.
According to People’s Daily, since 2009, the program of “Festival of Spring” has toured overseas every year during Chinese New Year holiday season. So far, it has dispatched 75 arts groups and done 450 performances in 331 cities across five continents, with nearly 7 million theater or public square audience members.
Tang Cuiying, head of the American Troupe of “Festival of Spring” and a board member of the China Overseas Friendship Association, a CCP led United Front Work organization, stated, “The overseas performances are to bring the blessings and greetings from the homeland to the overseas Chinese, so that they can enjoy the melodies and love from the homeland in an atmosphere of reunion and happiness.” Tang is also an official at the Bureau of Overseas Chinese Affairs under the CCP’s United Front Work Department.
Source: People’s Daily, March 1, 2019
http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/html/2019-03/01/nw.D110000renmrb_20190301_2-20.htm
China’s national “Two Conferences” (the National People’s Congress and the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference) are coming again. The capital, Beijing, and other places have initiated stability-maintenance mechanisms. In addition to the usual double safety check for the trains traveling to Beijing, the express mail, and the interception of petitioners coming to Beijing, the Political and Legal Committees started the “wartime mechanism” (of stability maintenance).
From February 22 to 23, Chinese State Councilor and Minister of Public Security, Zhao Kezhi, spent two days in Tianjin, mainly to check the safety work relating to the “Two Conferences,” including high-speed rail stations, logistics transceiver stations, command center joint operations, and other places.
According to a report, Zhao Kezhi said, “We must deploy the ‘Capital Moat’ with the most thorough and the most stringent measures.”
In Xingyang City of Henan Province, which is more than 700 kilometers away from Beijing, the local Political and Legal Committee issued a notice announcing that, from February 22 to March 17, the City will adopt the “wartime mechanism” during the “Two Conferences.” It will also report on the situation of the “targeted persons” who are under control and on the “situation of groups of petitioners traveling to the provincial capital and to Beijing” on a daily basis.
Source: creaders.net, February 25, 2019
http://news.creaders.net/china/2019/02/25/2058713.html
Canada’s Education Minister in the New Brunswick government, Dominic Cardy, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), that he is planning to terminate the Confucius Institute in New Brunswick by June out of concern that teachers only teach what the Chinese Communist Party approves and the Institute presents a “one-dimensional” view of China. Cardy already sent the Confucius Institute a letter of intent to discontinue the program.
Cardy says he’s recently received five complaints from students who attended the Confucius Institute programs. Each told of topics in Chinese history that were off-limits to discussion, such as Taiwan’s recognition and Tibet. Cardy explained, “Their job is to create a friendly, cheerful, face for a government that is responsible for more deaths than nearly any other in the history of our species.”
New Brunswick is not the first case to remove the institute. In 2014 the Toronto District School Board voted to remove the institute from their schools following protests. McMaster University and the University of Manitoba have also removed the Confucius Institute from their campuses over freedom of education concerns.
Source: Radio Free Asia, February 27, 2019
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/junshiwaijiao/lf-02272019093950.html
Major Taiwanese newspaper China Times recently reported that the world has been focusing on China’s eye-catching, ambitious, One Belt One Road. However, beyond that grand plan, China has been pushing the Digital Silk Road in Southeast Asia. This effort can not only bring more potential business opportunities, but also grab strategic controls, such as international data streams. Without direct national support on both the policy end and the financial end, the Digital Silk Road is relatively “low key,” compared to the One Belt One Road program. However it is pushed by major Chinese technology heavyweights like Huawei, ZTE, Alibaba, and Tencent. All of these vendors have strong government backing. The Chinese technology firms have already unseated earlier leaders in the region such as Samsung, on online critical market segments like e-commerce, car sharing, mobile devices, and financial services. The Chinese reach in Southeast Asia also got heavily into the infrastructure level, including telecommunication and submarine fiber cables. A large amount of strategic information, such as government and financial communications, is flowing through physical channels implemented by Chinese providers. The “China Model” in the digital world is getting more and more popular among regional dictatorships.
Source: China Times, February 21, 2019
https://www.chinatimes.com/realtimenews/20190221003711-260408
On February 22, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. Xi thanked Bin Salman for promoting the development of bilateral relations. Bin Salman praised the numerous remarkable achievements resulting from Chinese and Saudi cooperation. He expressed that one day would not enough for him to name them.
The Crown Prince launched the visit to Asian countries after the Khashoggi incident. Agence France-Presse quoted Najah al-Otaibi, a senior analyst at the pro-Saudi think-tank Arabia Foundation, “Riyadh wants to strengthen alliances in Asia — especially now — with the continuing fallout with the United States over Khashoggi’s murder as well as other issues and attempts by the EU to put Riyadh on a black list over money laundering allegations.”
Saudi Arabia had signed an agreement to form a $10 billion Saudi-Chinese joint venture to develop a refining and petrochemical complex in northeastern Liaoning province. Saudi also announced the signing of 35 non-binding memorandums of understanding, including deals related to energy, mining, transportation, and e-commerce. China is Saudi Arabia’s largest trading partner.
Source: Radio France International, February 22, 2019
http://rfi.my/3huK.T
Well-known Chinese news site Sohu recently reported that Chinese scientist Pan Jianwei could not attend the ceremony of the Newcomb Cleveland Prize that The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) sponsored due to visa issues. The Prize is one of the oldest science prizes in America (established in 1923). Pan Jianwei, also known as China’s Father of Quantum, is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and The World Academy of Sciences. He currently serves as the Vice President of the University of Science and Technology of China. Pan is on the list of China’s Thousand Talents Program as well as the new 100 Reform Leaders list. Pan missed the ceremony because the “Administrative Processing” for his visa caused a timing delay.
Source: Sohu, February 21, 2019
https://www.sohu.com/a/296269413_115479?sec=wd
United Daily News (UDN), one of the primary Taiwanese news groups, recently reported that 100 days after the Australian government announced its ban on Huawei communications technology for the country’s 5G infrastructure, Australian communications heavyweight TPG Telecom declared it would give up building 5G infrastructure on the national level entirely. TPG had invested around US$2 billion in the 5G infrastructure based on Huawei technology. It is quite amazing that a single Chinese company can have such a profound impact on a fairly sizable section of a nation’s infrastructure. The Huawei ban was a major financial setback for the company, which may take quite some time to recover. Huawei’s Vice Chairman explained that Huawei did not expect to enter all markets. He even named Australia in his comment that the entire Australian telecommunications market is smaller than the size of Guangzhou Mobile and the New Zealand market is smaller than that of his hometown – a mid-sized city in Hunan Province, so “losing a few countries really doesn’t matter.”
Source: UDN, February 21, 2019
https://udn.com/news/story/7086/3657468