Geo-Strategic Trend - 108. page

Since the outbreak of the new coronavirus, Taiwan has confirmed at least one case of the Wuhan pneumonia. Nevertheless, Taiwan was not invited to join other member states with confirmed cases in an emergency meeting that WHO (the World Health Organization) held on Wednesday January 22.

On Wednesday, in its response to the Wuhan pneumonia epidemic, the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s spokesman Geng Shuang said at a regular press conference regarding Taiwan’s exclusion from the WHO, “No one cares more about the health and well-being of Taiwan compatriots than the Chinese central government.” On Taiwan’s participation in international organizations, Geng said, “Reasonable arrangements must be made through cross-strait consultations under the one-China principle.”

The Taiwan government responded to Geng’s statement with dissatisfaction, regret, and condemnation. Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Joanne OU said on Thursday that, while the pneumonia epidemic in Wuhan has “intensified sharply and continued to spread outward,” not only did the Chinese Foreign Ministry not “share the facts about the epidemic’s situation” with Taiwan, but it also “posed as the central government and played politics” to denigrate Taiwan’s national sovereignty status. “The Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs deeply regrets such a bad act on China’s part and condemns it.”

In an interview with the VOA, Richard Bush, a senior researcher at the East Asian Studies Center at the Brookings Institute, said that the handling of the new coronavirus put China in an awkward situation, but Beijing’s political operations may “not be a bad thing. It actually let people see clearly what kind of government it is.”

Source: Voice of America, January 23, 2020
https://www.voachinese.com/a/taiwan-accuses-china-of-playing-politics-on-coronavirus-20200123/5257924.html

Recently, several alumni from the Free University of Berlin (FUB) published an open letter to Germany’s Federal Minister of Education and Research, the Mayor of Berlin, and the President of FUB, calling for clarification on the issue of China funding a German professorship position in the East Asian Studies Department. They called for an immediate end to such a practice. The advocate of the open letter, David Missal, had been deported from China in August 2018 for following the story of a Chinese activist lawyer who the regime had suppressed.

According to the Berlin based Daily Mirror newspaper, the Chinese government agency Hanban has being funding a professorship at FUB. The professor will create a Chinese teaching program while, at the same time, serving as the head of the Confucius Institutes in Berlin. The newspaper also reported that the German government was aware that Hanban is a cultural institution under the Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that China and the CCP are trying to exert influence on Germany’s China scholars through the activities of the Confucius Institutes, which have close ties with Hanban. Signatories of the open letter are worried that such a language teaching program will exclude articles that are critical of the CCP. Because this professorship receives funding from China, it faces a greater risk of self-censorship. One cannot even rule out the possibility that the CCP will fund political science professorships in the future.

The open letter made four requests. These include the exposure of the contents of the contract signed between Hanban and the FUB on the professor position; clarification of the channels via which such an agreement was reached; an announcement of the measures planned to prevent Hanban and the CCP’s influence on teaching contents; and a request that either Hanban’s contract for this new professor position be terminated immediately or the position be funded through other channels.

The Daily Mirror reported in December of last year that the Liberal Democratic Party’s parliamentary group warned against China’s influence over German universities through cultural institutions. There are currently 19 Confucius Institutes in Germany, most of which cooperate with German universities. The Confucius Institute at the Free University of Berlin started in 2006. It is the first Confucius Institute in Germany.

Source: Deutsche Welle, January 21, 2020
https://p.dw.com/p/3WYFM

The Chinese Central Government Official Website recently reported that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs commented on the new development in the Iranian Nuclear Deal. He made these comments at a press conference when he was asked for China’s position on the joint announcement of the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. The three countries had started a conflict resolution process regarding the Iranian Nuclear Deal. China recognized that the reason for Iran to cut back on fulfilling its responsibilities under the Deal was that the United States exited the Agreement. The U.S. pressed Iran to the extreme and obstructed other parties from performing their commitments. China expressed the belief that the UN Security Council officially acknowledged the Iranian Deal and that all parties should attempt to resolve the issues via dialogues that could restore the balance. China will continue to communicate actively with all parties and push for a peaceful diplomatic solution.

Source: Chinese Central Government Official Website, January 15, 2020
http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2020-01/15/content_5469552.htm

The Chinese regime regards Taiwan’s election as a very sensitive topic. For example, the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda authority warned Phoenix New Media, a Hong Kong based and Beijing controlled media, about setting up a special web page for Taiwan elections and broadcasting the news live. The website was told to remove the pages about this news topic immediately.

China’s official Global Times warned in a commentary on Saturday that “‘Don’t be flippant’ should be the motto of Tsai Ing-wen and the Democratic Progressive Party.” The article made the comment that, “Tsai’s reelection will increase the uncertainty in the situation across the Taiwan Strait.”

Another opinion that Beijing’s mouthpiece, the Xinhua News Agency, published said, “As people on the island and in the media have noted, this is obviously not a normal election. Tsai Ing-wen and the DPP used deceit, suppression, intimidation, and other dirty methods to obtain votes, which fully exposed their selfish, greedy, and evil nature.”

“The Tsai Ing-wen regime has proactively cooperated (with the U.S.), promoted “reliance on the United States against China,” including using the situation in Hong Kong to fan the flames and mislead the people of Taiwan. Obviously, external dark forces have largely manipulated this internal election in the Taiwan region.”

Sources:
1. Radio Free Asia, January 11, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/censor-01112020072051.html
2. Voice of America, January 12, 2020
https://www.voachinese.com/a/Taiwan-Leader-Reelection-As-Voters-Back-Tough-China-Stance-20200111/5241592.html
3. Xinhua, January 11, 2020
http://www.xinhuanet.com/tw/2020-01/11/c_1125450579.htm

The Chinese Embassy in Pakistan is now comprehensively collecting personal information on local Chinese Muslim students. At present, more than 400 students have surrendered their information, but it was against their will. A few years ago, Chinese embassies in Egypt and other countries had already registered Muslim students. There were incidents in which Muslim students were repatriated and called back to China after which they disappeared. People familiar with the situation revealed that their personal information had been shared with security authorities.

Students from International Islamic University, Islamabad (IIUI) broke the story on January 2nd. The collected information included [the Muslim student’s] passport number, WeChat account, phone number, address in both China and Pakistan, and their major area of study. The “Chinese Students Association in Pakistan, IIUI Chapter,” implemented the procedure. According to a notice circulated on the a Wechat group of IIUI students, IIUI’s Chinese Student Association required that, by New Year’s eve, Chinese students submit registration forms, which were to be submitted to the Chinese Embassy in Pakistan for archival registration. If anyone refused to submit the registration form, the Chinese Embassy would not process their graduation certification. The registration form also printed a warning: “if there is any concealment of the information, the registrant will bear the consequences.”

Huang Hao, vice chairman of the Chinese Students Association at IIUI told Radio Free Asia that the round of registration involved 700 to 800 Chinese students at IIUI. He also acknowledged that the Chinese Embassy in Pakistan had appointed him to do this. However, Huang refused to answer questions about the purpose of the collection.

At present, there are seven or eight hundred Chinese students studying at IIUI. Most of them are Muslim students from Ningxia, Xinjiang, Qinhai, Henan, and Yunnan provinces. Some study Islamic philosophy and Islamic history, others study Arabic, economics, and education.

Ma Ju, a Muslim current affairs commentator now living in the United States, told Radio Free Asia that, as early as the summer of 2016, in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the Chinese embassy registered local Muslim students who held a Chinese passport. In July 2017, the Deputy Minister of Public Security traveled to Cairo and worked with the Egyptian military government to arrest approximately 75 Chinese Muslim students after which they repatriate 52 students. After the incident, all local Chinese students were registered and their data were transmitted back to China. Many students disappeared after local police called them back. In addition, the embassy took control of information about Chinese Muslim students at several universities in Jordan.

Source: Radio Free Asia, January 5, 2019
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/pakistan-student-01052020084821.html