Skip to content

Briefings - 407. page

Head of China’s Buddhist Association Resigned after Sexual Harassment Allegations

Radio France Internationale reported that the head of China’s Buddhist Association resigned on August 15 after his female disciples lodged allegations of sexual harassment against him. As a Communist Party member and head monk of Longquan Temple in Beijing, Shi Xuecheng has been accused of sexual misconduct against at least six female disciples. A 95 page long document shows the text messages and online chat records of his improper exchanges with the female disciples. China’s Buddhist Association said it will launch an investigation into the allegations. Shi is a member of the National Political Consultative Committee and has several million devoted Buddhist believers who follow him on WeChat. According to an Aboluowang article, Shi has close connections with high ranking officials, while the United Front Department manages him. After the sexual allegation scandal was exposed, any online postings containing words such as “Longquan Temple” or “Shi Xuecheng” disappeared from Sina Weibo. All that is left is Shi’s denial statement. An Epoch Times article quoted reports from an August 16 article in Hong Kong’s Sing Tao Daily which stated that the sex scandal had been brought to Xi Jinping’s attention. The Party’s United Front Department got involved in the investigation and ordered Shi to resign immediately to limit the negative publicity.

Sources:
1. Radio France Internationale, August 15, 2018
http://cn.rfi.fr/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD/20180815-%E6%B6%89%E6%80%A7%E4%BE%B5%E6%8C%87%E6%8E%A7-%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E4%BD%9B%E6%95%99%E5%8D%8F%E4%BC%9A%E4%BC%9A%E9%95%BF%E9%87%8A%E5%AD%A6%E8%AF%9A%E8%BE%9E%E8%81%8C
2. Aboluowang, August 15, 2018
http://www.aboluowang.com/2018/0815/1158813.html
3. Epoch Times, August 18, 2018
http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/18/8/16/n10642832.htm

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

The Paper: China to Cooperate with Panama to Build “21st Century Maritime Silk Road”

The Paper reported that Transportation Minister Li Xiaopeng visited Panama from August 8 to August 11 to attend the signing ceremony of the “Memorandum of Understanding on Maritime Cooperation between the Ministry of Transportation of the Maritime Bureau of the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of Panama.” During his meeting with Li Xiaopeng, Juan Carlos Varela, Panama’s President, expressed the desire to strengthen the pragmatic cooperation between Panama and China in the fields of maritime transportation, air transportation, and transportation infrastructure construction and to utilize the advantage of Panama’s location to build a “21st Century Maritime Silk Road” with China. Currently, Panama’s ships receive preferential tax treatment in China; there are also direct flights between these two countries; and China also participates in canal, railway, and subway construction projects in Panama.

Source: The Paper, August 12, 2018
https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_2344378

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

China Unicom to Build 300 5G Test Stations in Beijing by Years’ End

On August 13, China Unicom’s Beijing branch officially released the “5G NEXT” plan. At the same time, it launched the first batch of 5G sites. As one of China Unicom’s 16 5G pilot cities, Beijing Unicom took the lead in rolling out 5G scale tests for commercial use. It plans to build 300 stations by the end of 2018, covering a wide range of applications such as large scale network testing, the application of ecological services, and business experience promotion.

A Beijing Municipal official said that, in the next five years, in key areas including Beijing City’s Second Center, Beijing’s New Airport, the 2019 Beijing World Expo, the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, and Chang’an Street, there will be demonstrations of applications of automatic driving, big data health and medical care, industrial grade Internet, smart city, and ultra-high definition video.

Source: Sputnik News, August 13, 2018
http://sputniknews.cn/china/201808131026111173/

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

PetroChina Plans to Increase Price of Natural Gas by 40 Percent This Winter

China Energy Network, a news network that People’s Daily sponsors, recently reported that PetroChina announced its new winter natural gas pricing structure. All customers can expect a minimum 20 percent price increase this winter. This minimum percentage was set by the Chinese government as the baseline price. In Eastern China, the PetroChina price increase will be 38 percent, across all types of customers, including the consumer market. In Southern China, the increased number will be 40 percent. Natural gas related stocks skyrocketed after the announcement. The Chinese government officially increased the tariff against U.S. liquid natural gas (LNG) by 25 percent. In the past 12 months, China became the second largest U.S. LNG buyer (after South Korea). After China’s tariff announcement, in the month of July, China’s import volume from the U.S. already dropped in half.

Source: China Energy, August 8, 2018
http://www.cnenergy.org/yq/trq/201808/t20180808_675676.html

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

China Has Second Largest Number of Cultural Centers in Africa

Development Reimagined, a Beijing based consulting Company, announced that China ranked second in terms of the number of cultural centers in Africa, only behind France.

Currently the region has 48 Confucius Institutes, which debuted in 2004. This is the second largest foreign cultural system in Africa. France ranks first with 180 cultural institutions. The others are the United States (40), the United Kingdom (38), Portugal (34) and Germany (21).

What makes the Confucius Institute different is that it is seated inside the campus of universities and its courses are part of the academic programs.

According to Dr. Ishmael Mensah, Dean of the Confucius Institute in Ghana, courses offered by Confucius Institutes are becoming more and more popular, with 2,000 students attending classes during the semester.

Source: Sputnik News, August 14, 2018
http://sputniknews.cn/society/201808141026115441/

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

Xinhua: The U.S.-Japan Trade Talks Faced Many Conflicts

Xinhua recently reported that the trade talks between the United States and Japan started on August 9. Because of the large number of disagreements, the talks could not be finished as scheduled and the two parties decided to continue on the second day. The Nikkei Index dropped by 1.33 percent citing worries about U.S. trade protectionism. Xinhua referred to a Nikkei (Japan Economics Newspaper) report, which indicated that the U.S. wanted to shift the talks into a free trade negotiation between the two countries, while Japan wanted to frame the talks under the TPP international agreement. The Xinhua article also quoted an Asahi News report on widespread concerns among Japanese industries, especially agriculture. The Trump administration had already threatened, not long ago, to increase the tariff on Japanese automobiles by 25 percent. According to Japanese media, the positions between the two countries are far from each other. Japanese Prime Minister Abe will soon face an election for the head of the party, while the U.S. President is about to be challenged in his first mid-term election. Nikkei is the world’s largest financial newspaper. Asahi News is the second largest Japanese daily newspaper.

Source: Xinhua, August 11, 2018
http://www.xinhuanet.com/world/2018-08/11/c_129931131.htm

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

EMA Found Another China Made Antihypertensive Drug That Causes Cancer

Radio Free Asia reported that, according to a notice that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) issued, certain batches of Valsartan (the medication used for high blood pressure and heart failure treatment) that the Zhejiang Tianyu Pharmaceutical Company manufactured were found to be impure and polluted with N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA). EMA is working with other international partners to investigate the impact of Valsartan. Prior to this, the study found that, when taken on a daily basis, one in every 5,000 patients who took a high dosage of the Valsartan that the Zhejiang Huahai company (not related to Zhejiang Tianyu) manufactured had cancer. In July, there was already a recall of Valsartan, due to safety concerns. The Canadian Health Department also stated that several drug companies have recalled the Valsartan generic drug out of concern for NDMA contamination. Currently, the International Agency for Research on Cancer has listed N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) as a material that causes cancer.

Source: Radio Free Asia, August 11, 2018
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/Xinwen/3-08112018123648.html

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

Epoch Times: Personal Reports from P2P Victims Who Went to Beijing to Petition

Recently, large numbers of P2P sites (Peer to Peer online Lending sites) have been shut down. This has resulted in hundreds of thousands of investors losing their investments overnight. The victims planned a petition in front of the China Banking Regulatory Commission in Beijing on August 6 but the Beijing Police Force blocked them. Nevertheless, over 2,000 victims successfully arrived at the China Banking Regulatory Commission or at a nearby location. Epoch Times published an article which provided a first-hand account of P2P (Peer to Peer Landing) victims who were at the scene. The article contains photos and videos that the victims took. Below is the translation of two of the victims’ personal stories.

One victim, Mr. Li arrived in Beijing on August 5. He stayed in a family hotel about 10 minutes away from the Banking Regulatory Commission because it didn’t require personal identification during check in. After they arrived, Mr. Li and another victim who is a college professor walked around to check out the surrounding situation. Mr. Li told Epoch Times, “August 6 was intense as they were waiting for us, which brought us little hope.” On the morning of August 6, they left around 7:30 am in the rain. The rain had almost stopped by the time they arrived across the street from the China Banking Regulatory Commission. He observed that there might have been a whole army of police officers around the financial street, with one police officer every three steps. The atmosphere was very tense and very scary. At the intersection, they saw a large number of police officers wearing gray-black raincoats interrogating pedestrians, especially those carrying backpacks. The police told them to stop and show their ID cards and swept the ID cards with the machine in their hands which contained a blacklist of petitioners’ names. They were quickly able to determine whether the person was a P2P petitioner, and then the petitioner was taken to dozens of buses parked on the street. Mr. Li and his friend found a corner to the right side of the Banking Regulatory Building and waited there for more petitioners to arrive. By 10:00 am, they realized that most of their fellow petitioners had been stopped at the train station, bus station, airport, or their home before they could leave. “There was a wide range of delays in trains and planes in Beijing on August 6. All of those were planned to target us,” Mr. Li said. He saw that the police used force to take many petitioners away from the scene. Eventually, shortly after 10, Mr. Li and his friend were also arrested. They were taken to a bus which took them to the Jiujingzhuang Petition Office in the Fentai district of Beijing. After they arrived at the petition office, the police first scanned their IDs and then sent them to individual rooms where the police or work unit from their hometown could pick them up. The guard at Jiujingzhuang told them there were over one thousand petitioners who had arrived on the buses. Beijing Police prepared 120 buses to transport the petitioners on that day, but Mr. Li thinks that the number of arrested petitioners was larger than that. One person with inside information posted a message on social media stating that over ten thousand police officers had been dispatched to deal with the petitioners. Another Petitioner Ms. Jin told Epoch Times that she was arrested at the Beijing train station while waiting for other petitioners. She was warned ahead of time that they couldn’t go to the government agencies in Beijing to file a petition but she said she still went because she was desperate. Ms. Jin said that, at the local police station, they were treated like criminals. They were told that they were inciting and spreading rumors and could be detained for crimes at any time with no explanation. Ms. Jin told Epoch Times that she went to Beijing to find out the truth. The Banking Regulatory Commission was supposed to have managed their investments. The government was supposed to have backed them. Where did the billions of dollars go? Mr. Li said the crash of the P2P lending site was a clear violation of citizen’s rights. He pointed out,“They took our money and then wanted to silence us. We were raising our voices as citizens to protect our own property.”

Source: Epoch Times, August 7, 2018
http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/18/8/7/n10622691.htm

Briefings | | |   Social Stability