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Russian Formal Military Chief of Staff Praised DJI Drones as a “Real Revolution” in Artillery War

The Russian Embassy placed a post on Weibo of the quotes from a new book by former Russian Military Chief of Staff General Yuri Baluyevsky. The Russian general praised Dajiang’s (DJI’s) drones and said that they have brought a real revolution to the usage of traditional artillery, completely solving the issues of detecting the target, directing the aim, and correcting fire. Their accuracy and efficiency are comparable to those of precision-guided missiles.

The general said DJI’s “Mavic quadcopter has become a true symbol of modern warfare.”

The posting was based on the Russian media Sputnik.

DJI immediately responded that its products are for civilian usage. Later, the Russian Embassy removed this posting.

Source: Net Ease, August 15, 2022
https://c.m.163.com/news/a/HERL2TJF05159GSR.html

Briefings | | |   @CS Geo-Strategic Trend

China Published a New White Paper on Taiwan

On August 10, Beijing published its latest White Paper on Taiwan. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council and the State Council Information Office published the document titled, “The Taiwan Question and China’s Reunification in the New Era.”

The paper announced that, “Taiwan has never been a state; its status as part of China is unalterable.”

“The realization of complete national reunification is driven by the history and culture of the Chinese nation and determined by the momentum towards and circumstances surrounding our national rejuvenation. Never before have we been so close to, confident in, and capable of achieving the goal of national rejuvenation. The same is true when it comes to our goal of complete national reunification.”

It criticized Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party authorities for creating tension and external forces for “hav(ing) encouraged and instigated provocative actions by the separatist forces.”

“(W)e will not renounce the use of force,” the document stated, “and we reserve the option of taking all necessary measures. This is to guard against external interference and all separatist activities… The use of force would be the last resort taken under compelling circumstances.”

China published the Taiwan White Paper in both 1993 and 2000. Both earlier versions mentioned that, “(Beijing) will not dispatch soldiers or administrative staff to Taiwan” after the “re-unification.” The 2000 White Paper also stated, “As long as Taiwan recognizes there is only one China and does not seek independence, everything is negotiable.” These sentences were not seen in the new White Paper.

The Taiwan government disputed Beijing’s claim. The Taiwan Mainland Affairs Council said this White Paper was, “full of wishful-thinking, lies and reckless disregard of the truth.” “Only the 23 million people of Taiwan have the right to decide the future of Taiwan, and they will never accept the results set by an authoritarian regime.”

Sources:
1. China’s State Council Website, August 10, 2022
https://english.www.gov.cn/archive/whitepaper/202208/10/content_WS62f34f46c6d02e533532f0ac.html
2. Al Jazeera, August 10, 2022
https://chinese.aljazeera.net/news/political/2022/8/10/中国重申武统台湾立场

Briefings | | |   @CS Geo-Strategic Trend Government/Politics

U.S. Veteran: How the Chinese Consulate Tries to Control the Voting in U.S. Elections

The U.S. will hold its mid-term elections on November 8. To prevent foreign governments from interfering in the U.S. elections, the State Department offered a $10 million reward for reporting such interfering activities.

Yan Xiong, a candidate running for the U.S. Congress in New York State’s 10th district, said the Chinese Consulate in New York ordered the Chinese diaspora not to vote for him. He told the Epoch Times on July 24, “The Chinese Consulate informed Chinese associations not to let their people vote for me. Many people called me or wrote to me to tell me about it.” There are many in the Chinese diaspora in the 10th district. Mr. Xiong feels his case is solid evidence that Beijing is interfering in the U.S. election.

Mr. Xiong is a Chinese-American human rights activist. He was a law student at Beijing University and a student leader in the Tiananmen democracy movement in 1989. He came to the U.S. in 1992 as a political refugee and served in the U.S. military for 27 years. He retired as a chaplain in the army.

Mr. Xiong told the Epoch Times newspaper about another instance of Beijing’s interference cases in March. He was planning the opening ceremony of his campaign office on March 19. The Chinese Consulate asked Chinese association leaders not to support him, to give him no donation and not to vote for him. The Chinese Consulate called people from Fujian Province and Guangdong Province in for a meeting on either March 17 or 18, giving them a choice: “Would you rather do business in China or support his campaign?” Those people then didn’t come to Mr. Xiong’s gathering. An immigrant from Fuzhou City, Fujian Province confirmed independently to the Epoch Times that the President of a Fuzhou Fellowship Association received a Chinese Consulate’s notice saying not to support Mr. Xiong.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced on March 16 that  five people were Chinese agents. Their actions included ruining Mr. Xiong’s election. Qiming Lin, a member of China’s State Security Department asked a private detective (who happened to be an FBI undercover agent) to defame Mr. Xiong, such as by digging into his past affairs looking for something to use against him  or tax evasion information or by setting him up with a woman, or directly beating him or creating a car accident.

An independent news commentator Ge Bidong shared a story about the Chinese Consulate’s interference on May 12, 2021. Ge and his friend running for a position visited Zhou. The President of the Shanghai Chinese Association was there. Zhou told them that the campaign in New York “cannot do without the Chinese Consulate” and the business associations and fellowship associations won’t let a person pass without the Chinese Consulate’s support for that candidate.

Mr. Ge and his candidate friend had previously been  imprisoned in China.

“The (Chinese) Consulate said that your things are an ‘internal conflicts’ but the Falun Gong issue is a ‘conflict with the enemy.’” Zhou told them, “As long as you are not Falun Gong, you will be fine.” Zhou also promised to take them to the Chinese Consulate and “all your things will be resolved.”

Source: Epoch Times, July 26, 2022
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/22/7/26/n13789113.htm.

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

Many Chinese Home Buyers Collectively Decide to Stop Paying Their Mortgage on an Unfinished Home

The Chinese real estate industry has faced several ripple effects after many developers struggled or defaulted on their debt payments. Not only do investors and banks face losses, but constructions of many buildings have also been halted for months if not years and home buyers were not sure when they will eventually receive their homes. For some buildings, the builders have no intention to complete the construction and will just leave them in the unfinished status forever; the Chinese call them the “rotten-tail buildings.”

Unlike the U.S. the home-selling practice where the home buyers sign a contract with the builder when the building is constructed and take out a mortgage when the home is delivered, Chinese buyers take out the mortgage at the time of signing the contract and start the payment right away, even though they don’t have the house.

This presents a big, unfair problems for the home buyers.  They are paying mortgages to banks while seeing no progress in the construction of their homes.

Getting no help on these unfinished buildings from the builders, the banks, and the government, many home buyers resolved to a new approach: collectively announcing they would stop their mortgage payment.

On June 30, all home buyers of an unfinished construction project in Jingdezhen City, Jiangxi Province announced jointly on social media that they would stop mortgage payments until the builder resumes construction. This started a wave of home buyers’ stopping their mortgage payments. By June 16, according to NTDTV’s report, home buyers of at least 270 project (a project may consist of multiple buildings) throughout China, including Jiangxi, Anhui, Henan, Hubei, and other provinces, have made similar announcements,

Technically, the unfinished building is a dispute between the home buyers and the real estate developers, not involving the bank. Banks can still hold the buyers accountable for their payments and have the option to freeze and auction buyers’ own personal properties and put them on a bad credit list, if they stop their payment. However, since home purchasing accounts for a significant portion of spending for many Chinese families, these home buyers feel that they have nothing more to lose.

Some home buyers have also found ways to accuse the banks. Some banks didn’t put their payment in proper escrow accounts, some banks released the funds to real estate developers though the construction didn’t reach the required funding stage, and some banks purposely created bad mortgage contracts to steal the home buyers’ money.

This stopping payment wave also spread to real estate developers’ suppliers and contractors. On July 15, an announcement circulated on the Internet that suppliers and contractors in Hubei Province supporting the Evergrande Group decided to stop providing funding and materials and stop doing work if they do not receive Evergrande’s payment up front.

Sources:
1. SINA, July 13, 2022
https://finance.sina.com.cn/chanjing/cyxw/2022-07-13/doc-imizmscv1383585.shtml
2. Epoch Times, July 14, 2022
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/22/7/14/n13781035.htm
3. NTDTV, July 16, 2022
https://www.ntdtv.com/gb/2in022/07/16/a103480739.html

Briefings | | |   @CS Economy/Resources

Chinese Military Attaché Driven Out of Pacific Islands Forum

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been trying to expand its influence over the Pacific Islands for years. It successfully signed a security treaty with the Solomon Islands which allows for police and military exchanges. However, at the China-Pacific Island Countries Foreign Ministers’ meeting in May, its recent push for a similar security treaty with the whole group of island countries did not go through.

The latest development was at the Pacific Islands Forum which was held in Suva, Fiji from July 12 to 15. When U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris was delivering an online speech on July 13, two Chinese officials entered the media section without proper identification. A Fiji news reporter recognized one of them and asked what his identity was. Was he a Chinese embassy official or a Xinhua news reporter? The Chinese official shook his head as if he didn’t understand English. The Fiji reporter then informed the meeting organizer and the police came to remove those two Chinese officials.

Later people in the diplomat circle confirmed that these two people were the Military Attaché and Deputy Military Attaché from the Chinese Embassy in Fiji.

Source: Radio France International, July 13, 2022
https://www.rfi.fr/cn/中国/20220713-贺锦丽正说着话-两名中国使馆武官遭太平洋岛国论坛会议警方驱离

Briefings | | |   @CS Geo-Strategic Trend

Former Japanese Intelligence Officer Estimates China Sent at Least 20,000 Spies to Japan

While the U.S. intelligence community is busy investigating Chinese spy cases in its country, the Japan intelligence faces the similar challenge: the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has sent too many spies to Japan.

Radio Free Asia reported that Masatoshi Fujitani, a former Investigative officer from Japan’s Public Security Investigation Bureau stated in a TV interview that he estimated that China has sent 20,000 to 25,000 spies to Japan so far.

On a Japanese cable channel ABEMA’s “ABEMA Prime” program, Fujitani said, “Through cooperation with intelligence agencies in various countries, (we) estimated that China has sent around 20,000 to 25,000 spies or agents to Japan. Adding (those from) North Korea and Russia, the number of agents in Japan is huge. However, with only 1,700 staff members, our Public Security Investigation Bureau is unable to keep up with the opponents. We can only respond as much as we can within our limited budget.”

Source: Radio Free Asia, July 8, 2022
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/jp-spy-07082022060550.html

Briefings | | |   @CS Geo-Strategic Trend

Japanese Eyewitness’s Description of Live Organ Harvesting Situation

Ushio Sugawara (菅原潮) is a former member in the Yamaguchi Group, a large organized-crime syndicate in Japan. He left the group in 2015. The Epoch Times newspaper interviewed him on June 20 of this year at which time he talked about the organ harvesting he witnessed in China.

In 2007, the brother of a Sugawara’s friend needed a liver transplant. Within a month, the Beijing Armed Police General Hospital offered him a matching organ for 30 million Japanese Yen (U.S. $222,000). When the hospital was ready to do the operations, it found that the blood product of albumin they had was a fake product. His friend asked Sugawara to bring albumin from Japan to China.

Sugawara was stopped at the Beijing airport for not having permission to import albumin to China. Though a high-ranked armed police officer came to meet him, the airport police, which was not under the same command as the armed police, stopped him for several hours. Eventually some politicians got involved and released Sugawara and his albumin.

Sugawara visited his friend’s brother before the transplant. The doctor, who had previously studied in Japan, showed him the organ supplier who was in the next door and was still alive. He was a 21-year-old male and he was under anesthesia. The doctor told the friend’s brother that the organ supplier was a bad person and would die anyway. This way, they would “let him make a contribution before his death.” That doctor also said, “He is young and his organs are very healthy.”

Sugawara kept inquiring about the person and was told that he was a Falun Gong practitioner.

The hospital severed the Falun Gong practitioner’s tendons in both hands and feet the day before. The doctors told Sugawara that they did it to prevent him from escaping and also to have a better result when cutting the organ. When people are scared, their bodies curl up and that can affect the quality of their organs.

However, the surgery failed. Both the Falun Gong practitioner and Sugawara’s friend’s bother died.

Sugawara said that doctors in Japan knew about the live organ harvesting but kept sending patients to China, and Japanese media also knew about it but remained silent on it as well.

Source: Epoch Times, June 27, 2022
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/22/6/25/n13767360.htm

Briefings | | |   @CS Government/Politics