Geo-Strategic Trend - 106. page

Major Taiwanese news network Liberty Times Network (LTN) recently reported that Beijing’s new HK National Security Law sent a shockwave across the world. However, Beijing probably did not make this decision casually or in a hurry. Instead, this could very likely have been a carefully calculated move based on the bet that Beijing may not pay a geopolitical price. The international community has frequently condemned Beijing’s rude and unlawful activities, but rarely did people see tangible action taken against Communist China as a meaningful punishment. While the whole world is busy dealing with the pandemic, Beijing has been knocking down fishing ships near Vietnam, attacking the newly elected Taiwanese president, and confronting Indian troops on India’s border in the Himalayas. Since President Xi Jinping came into power, China has stopped the model of quietly raising its soft power globally. China is now no longer a country that feels ashamed of being a dictatorship. Instead it is betting that the world will once again just do lip service and China will not face any real punishment.

Source: LTN, May 25, 2020
https://news.ltn.com.tw/news/world/breakingnews/3176756

As Beijing pushed forward and imposed a new national security law on Hong Kong, Chen Ming-Tong, Minister of the Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), announced on Thursday May 29 that Taiwan developed the Hong Kong Humanitarian Assistance Action Plan in accordance with Article 18 of the “Laws and Regulations Regarding Hong Kong & Macao Affairs.” The plan contains four principles: the government takes the lead; MAC is in charge of cross-agency collaboration; the government establishes and implements a legal entity; funding comes from the government’s budget.

Chen made it clear that Taiwan will adopt a two-part policy and treat Hong Kong citizens and the Hong Kong government separately. It will definitely not treat the Hong Kong people the same as it treats the people from mainland China. “Article 18 is for the Hong Kong people who want to come to Taiwan. For example, if a person is a financial professional or has technological talent and he wants to come to Taiwan, we have an overall plan to make it more convenient. The policy objective includes what happens after people come, how they deal with their resettlement, and how they take care of their lives. All of these are in this action plan.”

Chen added, “As the golden standard of Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy has declined, we must have second thoughts. In the past we regarded Hong Kong as the third (independent) place in politics. Now, with Beijing’s imposition of the National Security Law, then, on the issue of national security, does the Hong Kong government carry out its own will or Beijing’s? Because the national security goal of Beijing is to unify Taiwan and wipe out the Republic of China, we have concerns about our national security. At this point, Article 60 applies to the future situation of the Hong Kong government. We must evaluate and may consider suspending part of the act if it jeopardizes our national security.” Article 60 of the “Laws and Regulations Regarding Hong Kong & Macao Affairs” is a provision to enable Taiwan to respond when “any change occurs in the situation of Hong Kong or Macau such that the implementation of this Act endangers the security of Taiwan.”

Source: Radio Free Asia, May 28, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/htm/tw-guidelines-05282020063302.html

Hong Kong Economic Times (HKET), the leading financial daily in Hong Kong, recently reported that, based on the latest polls conducted by the Angus Reid Institute, the number of Canadians with positive views about China reached a record low. Among the 1,518 people surveyed, only 14 percent viewed China positively. The same number was 29 percent six months ago. Around 85 percent of the sample expressed the belief that the Chinese government was not honest on reporting the status of the coronavirus. The poll also showed that 78 percent of the people were against allowing Huawei into Canada’s 5G network. At the same time, 88 percent said China could not be trusted on human rights and the rule of law. Only 11 percent of the people now believe Canada should focus on trading with China. This poll was designed to find out the Canadian public’s view about twelve key countries that are important to Canada. Ever since the Chinese government arrested Canadian citizens Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, plus sentencing Robert Lloyd Schellenberg to death, the Canadian public’s view on China has rapidly turned negative.

Source: HKET, May 14, 2020
https://bit.ly/2Ty0dxb

The State Security Service, the Veiligheid van de Staat (VSSE), a Belgian state intelligence agency, recently spoke out about China’s spy activities in the military and scientific arena posing threats to EU security.

In October 2019, Belgium declared Song Xinning, the Confucius Institute president of the Free University of Brussels (VUB), as persona non grata, revoking his visa and banning his entry into the 26 European Schengen states for 8 years. During his ten-year tenure at VUB, Song had engaged in espionage activities for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and was regarded as “sabotaging national security.”

“As part of the ambitious ‘Made in China 2025’ project, which provides for rapid development of know-how in China itself, all available means must be used to import as much knowledge as possible into China,” the VSSE told the EUobserver, a not-for-profit online newspaper based in Brussels, when it was describing China’s goal of siphoning information from abroad. “These include formal knowledge transfer programmes, such as exchanges between researchers, joint ventures, and takeovers of companies. In some cases, China also does economic espionage.”

On May 7, the EUobserver disclosed some details of some confidential VSSE reports dated from 2010 to 2016, which stated that Chinese spies have targeted Belgian biological warfare and vaccine experts, British pharmaceutical giant and vaccine-maker GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in Belgium and Belgian high-tech firms.

VSSE is also concerned about the China Belgium Technology Centre (CBTC), a Chinese-funded “smart valley” in Louvain-la-Neuve. It houses 23 Chinese and Belgian firms in the life sciences, IT, and high-tech manufacturing sectors, and will house up to 800 Chinese high-tech specialists and entrepreneurs when it is completed in late 2021. “And even if the CBTC itself was not a front for Chinese intelligence, it could be used by the MSS (Ministry of State Security) as a back door in the future, the VSSE warned.”

On May 15, the French newspaper Le Monde,  also reported on long-held VSSE suspicions that Chinese intelligence had installed surveillance equipment in Malta’s EU embassy in Brussels in 2007, when a Chinese firm renovated the building.

Source: Radio Free Asia, May 15, 2020.
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/junshiwaijiao/cl-05152020125714.html
EUobserver, May 6, 2020
https://euobserver.com/science/148244

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) News, Chinese Edition, recently reported that China just announced a new import ban on four Australian meat providers, three of which are from Queensland and one from New South Wales. Most analysts expressed the belief that this new trade barrier is obviously retaliation against Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who insisted on an independent investigation into the source of COVID-19. The four companies banned are Kilcoy Pastoral, Beef City, Dinmore, and Northern Cooperative Meat. These four companies hold a 35 percent share of the total Australian beef exports to China, which is expected to be AU$3.5 billion (around US$2.25 billion) this year. The Australian government explained that the new ban is related to “highly technical” issues. Last month, the Chinese ambassador to Australia threatened that, if Australia were to investigate China’s handling of COVID-19, Chinese consumers might strongly resist Australian goods. Ironically, one of the companies, Kilcoy, is funded by Chinese investments. China is Australia’s largest trade partner.

Source: ABC News Chinese, May 12, 2020
https://www.abc.net.au/chinese/2020-05-12/china-trade-escalation-as-beef-farmers-are-targeted/12239690

Undergraduate programs in a few top universities in China are canceling their entrance exams for foreign students. Parents of domestic students feel angry; others believe that, as Beijing’s Confucius Institute program faces growing resistance overseas, this is a way to work around to the brainwashing of foreign kids.

In early May, Peking University posted on its website a “Notice on the Adjustment of the Undergraduate Entrance Examination Program for International Students in 2020.” It had an explanation that remote interviews, instead of written exams, would be used to admit students, citing concerns about the ongoing epidemic. A few top tier universities, including Tsinghua University, Renmin University of China, and Shanghai Jiaotong University, copied the practice.

Chinese netizens are angry. While Chinese kids have to take a tough college entrance examination, why is it so easy for foreign students to go to a good university? Ms. Zhu told Radio Free Asia (RFA), “As prestigious universities in China, they should give priority to Chinese kids. It is a shame for the Chinese Communist Party to do this.”

Shi Dajun, a Chinese education scholar, believes this policy has everything to do with the resistance that Confucius Institutes (CIs) have received in recent years. “Not only Tsinghua Peking University, but many schools are exempting admission exams for foreign students. After the CIs have been defeated abroad, this is a new direction.”

Mr. Cai, a retired professor from Lanzhou University, told RFA that it may be a strategic measure to attract foreign students, so that China’s totalitarian ideas can be planted in the minds of young Westerners. China provides students in Africa and countries along the “Belt and Road” an annual stipend of 300,000 yuan (US$42,000). “This is a way to bring up a whole pro-China generation and lay a good foundation for friendly relations with these countries. One can say that the state spares no expense in this regard, and is doing something we cannot see.”

Shi Daijun added, “Originally, Beijing wished to use the Confucius Institute to push the patriotic education abroad, as a way to brainwash foreigners. The brainwashing of Chinese people is now almost done. They feel it more urgent to brainwash foreign young people.”

According to the Ministry of Education, the budget for foreign students in China in 2019 was 3.92 billion yuan (US$ 0.55 billion), an increase of 18.1 percent over 2018.

Source: Radio Free Asia, May 11, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/zhengzhi/ql-05112020060257.html