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BBC Chinese: Asian Stock Markets Declined after China’s New Promises

BBC Chinese recently reported that the China International Import Expo (CIIE) started on November 5. In a keynote address, Chinese leadership made promises to open up the country’s domestic market and to lower tariffs. China intends to broaden its imports and strengthen the protection of intellectual property. In the next 15 years, China expects to import over US$30 trillion worth of goods and US$10 trillion worth of services. However, many experts pointed out that China’s promises lacked tangible action items and a clear timetable. The nearby Asian stock markets reflected the concerns of the analysts. Immediately after the CIIE opening keynote address, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 2.65 percent, while both the Shanghai Composite Index and the Shenzhen Component Index fell more than 1 percent. The Tokyo stock market fell 1.3 percent, and Singapore fell 1.8 percent. Right before the CIIE, these stock markets all increased due to the fact that U.S. President Trump commented positively on an on-going dialogue with China. However, the Chinese message appeared to be disappointing.

Source: BBC Chinese, November 5, 2018
https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-46094238

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources Geo-Strategic Trend

Beijing’s Mouthpiece Charges “Crimes” of Social Media

China Central Television (CCTV), China’s official TV network, recently aired a program that listed “six major crimes” of social media. The official newspaper People’s Daily also published an article criticizing social media. They are indications that the authorities are ready to “clean up” social media. CCTV also mentioned that the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission (CCAC), the Chinese Communist Party’s policy and implementation arm of Internet regulations, will strengthen the supervision of social media.

The “six crimes” that CCTV listed include: being vulgar and pornographic, using sensational article titles, creating and spreading rumors, adopting black PR (influential netizens hired to use postings to support or attack some companies), paying for readership, and plagiarism.

The People’s Daily article also pointed out three problems of social media, including extortion, plagiarism, and a large volume of deception.

A CCAC official was quoted as saying, “In the next step, the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission will coordinate relevant authorities and work harder.  …  It will carry out special rectification activities of the social media, strictly punish the illegal accounts according to the law, resolutely curb the chaos in the media, maintain the normal order of the Internet communications, and create a clean, positive, healthy, and orderly cyberspace.”

Source: Radio France International, November 11, 2018
http://rfi.my/3JsG.T

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

Territorial Ownership a State Secret?

Recently, an article titled “Chinese People Have No Right to Know Their Territorial Map” sparked heated discussions on social media. The article told the story of an independent history researcher, Yin Minhong, who requested disclosure from the Chinese Foreign Ministry regarding the territorial ownership of the Tannu Uriankhai region on the Sino-Russian border. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected the request on the grounds that it “involved secrecy.”

Yin Minhong made the request in August of 2017.  He told the BBC Chinese that he was hoping that the Chinese authorities would give a legal explanation of whether Tannu Uriankhai is still a territory that China has not given up, and whether there is hope to reclaim it.

Tannu Uriankhai (Chinese: 唐努乌梁海) was a historic region in the Mongolian Empire and, later, the Qing dynasty. It is located north of Xinjiang and northwest of Mongolia, an area near the Tuva Republic under today’s Russia. During World War II, the area became an independent state. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country remained in the Russian Federation as an autonomous republic. Neither the People’s Republic of China nor Taiwan has made a clear statement on the sovereignty of the land.

The letter from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated, “According to Articles 14 and 21 of the Regulations on the Openness of Government Information of the People’s Republic of China, the information you applied for is confidential and does not belong to the scope of government information disclosure.”

In March 2018, Yin made appeals to the Beijing No.3 Intermediate People’s Court and later to the Beijing Municipal High People’s Court, but the courts decided not to accept his case.

Yin told BBC Chinese, “The signing of a territorial treaty is diplomatic state behavior, but the treaty that was signed belongs to government information.”

Si Weijiang, a lawyer in Shanghai, told BBC Chinese that, according to China’s secrecy system, whether a document is confidential or not can be determined by the authority that issued the document or by the Bureau of State Secrecy. “However,” Si said, “Every citizen should have the right to know information such as national territory and borders.”

Source: BBC Chinese, November 7, 2018
https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-46120157

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

China’s Gait Recognition Software, a New Weapon for Surveillance?

A Chinese firm recently released a gait recognition machine which uses the way people walk to identify them. Police in some cities have already deployed this tool.

According to the Chinese newspaper, the Yangtse Evening Post, the system is named “Shui Di Shen Jian (水滴神鉴).” It uses the characteristics of the human gait as the object and conducts rapid searches for and identification of people in massive video clips through the gait recognition technology. It has the ability to achieve a retrieval speed six times faster than other methods. With this technology, it only takes 10 minutes to screen a one-hour video with an accuracy rate of 94 percent.

Associated Press reported on November 5 that the Chinese police have already used the system on the streets of Beijing and Shanghai. “‘Gait recognition’ is part of a push across China to develop artificial-intelligence and data-driven surveillance that is raising concern about how far the technology will go.”

The developer of the tool Watrix announced last month that it had raised 100 million yuan (US$14.5 million) to step up the development and sale of the technology. Chinese police have been using facial recognition technology to monitor people and arrest pedestrians who violate traffic rules. The Police in Xinjiang, who are using facial recognition to monitor Muslim communities, are said to be interested in acquiring gait recognition products.

Huang Yongzhen, the CEO of Watrix, said using biotech to maintain social stability and managing the society is an inevitable trend and a perfect business opportunity as well.

Gait recognition technology is not a new technology. Defense information agencies in Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States have been studying the technology for years. Japanese police has been experimenting with gait recognition technology since 2013, but they have not yet tried to commercialize this technology. China is charging ahead because of its emphasis on social control.

Source: Radio Free Asia, November 6, 2018
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/renquanfazhi/nu-11062018100430.html

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

European Union Chamber of Commerce: EU Lost Confidence in Xi’s Promises to Open China’s Market

Radio France Internationale reported that, at the China International Import Expo (CIIE), Chinese President Xi Jinping made a commitment to continue to open up the Chinese market and give fair treatment to foreign companies doing business in China. The statement did not augment the EU’s confidence in China. Carlo D’Andrea, vice president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China and chairman of the Shanghai Chapter expressed his disappointment on Tuesday. In the statement that the European Union Chamber of Commerce issued, he pointed out that much of the content in the speech that Xi delivered echoed what had previously been announced. There were two developments in the speech that were noted, which were removing caps on foreign investments in education and in medical services. According to the RFI article, the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China believes that, since the previous commitments have not been fulfilled, the European Union has become increasingly insensitive to the promises that China has made. Kenneth Jarrett, the President of the Shanghai office of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, said that so far, as the world’s second largest economy, China should be able to open its doors. According to Andrea, China will not be considered to have made a major and positive structural change until it allows international companies to compete with Chinese companies on an equal basis. In his interview with Bloomberg, Andrea said that Xi promised to open up China’s market during the Davos Forum in 2017 but many promises have not been fulfilled. The EU believes that China has more than one hundred restrictions on foreign companies in China, and the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China recently issued the “Shanghai Proposal 2018-2019,” which details the acts that the EU hopes China can take in order to let Shanghai become one of the world’s financial market centers. “2020 is the time that Shanghai has set for itself to be the center of the world’s financial market, and as of now, there is way too much incomplete homework to do.”

Source: Radio France Internationale, November 6, 2018
http://rfi.my/3Ig6.T

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

CNA: Survey Shows Most Hong Kong Youths Do Not Identify Themselves as Chinese

According to an article that the Central News Agency published, a recent survey showed that 45 percent of Hong Kong youths do not identify themselves as Chinese. This is the result of a survey that the Zhuhai College Public Opinion and Polling Research Center conducted in August. A total of 1,000 Hong Kong youths, aged 15 to 24, were interviewed. The survey also showed that 58 percent do not recognize themselves as residents of the Greater Bay Area (Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao) and 52.6 percent do not agree with the concept of the integration of Hong Kong with mainland China. The research center pointed out that respondents have a strong sense of local identity. They think that Hong Kong offers a greater advantage in schooling, employment, or starting a business compared to what the mainland offers. It is widely believed that after the outbreak of the “Occupy Central Movement” in Hong Kong at the end of 2014, a sense of localism developed in Hong Kong. Most of the participants were young people. They did not agree with having the identity of Chinese and refused to integrate with the Chinese mainland.

Source: Central News Agency, November 6, 2018
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/201811060321.aspx

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

VOA: Two Scholars from Beijing Unirule Institute of Economics Prevented from Attending a Research Discussion in the U.S.

Voice of America (VOA) reported that two scholars from the Beijing Unirule Institute of Economics were prevented from leaving China to attend a research discussion on “China’s 40 years of reform and opening up” which the Unirule Institute of Economics and the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies held jointly. The head of the Unirule Institute of Economics told VOA that he attends academic exchange activities every year and traveled overseas just a few months ago. However, on November 1, he was told, while waiting at the Beijing Airport, that he could not to leave the country because it would “endanger national security.” Another scholar was also stopped at the airport but was not given a reason. Close to 20 scholars were invited to the forum. Some have left but a few people “changed their minds” and decided not to attend. This academic event was held on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Source: Voice of America, November 8, 2018
https://www.voachinese.com/a/4646440.html

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

China’s Increasing Presence in European Electricity Sector

Le Figaro, a French daily newspaper, recently carried an article on China’s increasing influence over the European electric power supply network. The article quoted from the World Energy Markets Observatory (WEMO) report of 2018, that Capgemini, a French consulting firm headquartered in Paris, had published. China, according to the report, is “the world’s second largest consumer of energy, the leading emitter of Greenhouse Gases (GHG), a significant energy equipment supplier, and a key player in critical resources. It has also become an important investor in electric companies.”

The report pointed out that a key strategy of Chinese expansion in Europe is to increase its control or influence over the continent’s electric power supply network. Chinese investment has already gained access to the electric sectors of Portugal, Italy, Greece, Malta, and the United Kingdom. It was due to the opposition of the German government that China did not have success in Germany. For energy experts, the control of the power supply network is of great strategic importance. Moreover, China is the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels, and is in a leading position in the field of wind energy. The Chinese government is currently investing in large-scale research and development of electricity storage and aims to export Chinese-made batteries to the world in the near future.

However, the problem is that in the process of producing the above-mentioned green energy products, Chinese companies will emit a large amount of greenhouse gases. In addition, China also exports a large number of its own thermal power plants. In addition, the Chinese government will obviously be unable to achieve its goal of CO2 reduction, which is the total coal-fired power generation of less than 1,100 gigawatts, by 2020.

Source: Radio France International, November 6, 2018
http://rfi.my/3Ihk.T

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources