Geo-Strategic Trend - 133. page

Chinese authorities have drawn global attentions for building re-education camps in Xinjiang. Atajurt Kazakh Human Rights, a Kazakh civil organization, has volunteered to disclose the inside stories about the Xinjiang Re-education camps and to assist the Kazakh, Uighur, and Kirgiz people in Xinjiang in finding missing or imprisoned relatives and friends. Recently, a pro-Beijing local Chinese group in Kazakhstan filed a lawsuit against Atajurt, charging the organization and its founder Serikzhan Bilash with “destroying the friendship between China and Kazakhstan.” It asked the court to declare Atajurt an illegal organization.

According to Radio Free Asia, Atajurt obtained a plethora of information regarding the Chinese government’s ethnic policies and practices in Xinjiang, including burning The Koran, demolishing mosques, prohibiting ethnic minorities from holding traditional weddings or funerals, and even sentencing Imams or causing Imams to die in prison. This information has drawn attention from the United States, the United Nations, and the European Union.

It has been said that the 37-member “patriotic overseas Chinese” group has close ties with the Chinese Embassy. According to Serikzhan, these people have participated in a number of social events that the Chinese Embassy organized in Kazakhstan, such as the annual “National Day” dinner, and they also attended the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (held in Beijing). He said that, “Their purpose is to stop us from organizing activities and stop us from continuing to collect information and evidence about the Xinjiang ‘re-education’ concentration camps.”

Source: Radio Free Asia, February 13, 2019
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/shaoshuminzu/ql1-02132019094914.html

China’s “Belt and Road” port project is involved in a legal dispute in Djibouti in the Gulf of Aden in Africa. China’s listed state-owned company China Merchants Port (SEHK: 144) was charged with ignoring the port operator’s franchise agreement and investing in the construction of a new terminal in Djibouti. This is the first time that a multinational company has filed a lawsuit against a Chinese state-owned enterprise in Hong Kong for its “Belt and Road” project.

In August last year, Dubai-based global port operator DP World filed a lawsuit in the Hong Kong High Court against China Merchants Port, that China Merchants Port, knowing that the Djibouti government and DP World had already signed a 30-year port franchise, still unlawfully procured and/or induced Djibouti’s breach of its agreement with DP World.

According to the indictment, the Djibouti government signed an agreement with DP World in 2004 that DP World would enjoy a 30-year franchise for the Doraleh Container Terminal (DTC), which was put into operation in 2009. However, three years later, China Merchants Port proposed cooperation with the Djibouti government and finally built a new “Doraleh Multi-purpose Terminal” next to the local Chinese People’s Liberation Army base. In 2017, the Djibouti government and China Merchants Port signed another agreement to build the “Doraleh International Container Terminal.”

This is the first time that a multinational company has sued a Chinese state-owned enterprise in relation to the “Belt and Road” project in Hong Kong. The case is viewed as a test of Hong Kong’s judicial independence.

Source: Radio Free Asia, February 11, 2019
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/jingmao/gf1-02112019095745.html

At a time of tense relations between Canada and China, Jonathan Manthorpe, a long time a foreign correspondent and international affairs columnist, published a new book on February 2, “Claws of the Panda: Beijing’s Campaign of Influence and Intimidation in Canada.” The book portrays how the Chinese Communist Party has used a number of different means to infiltrate Canada and other Western countries.

Manthorpe said that Canada has had wrong expectations of China over the past 40 years. He said that Canada has two major blind spots on China. The first is the thought that, with the integration of China into the global economy, it will become a country that values democracy, human rights, and freedom. The second is the belief that China has no ambitions and it will not use its hegemonic powers to suppress other nations. Today, the Meng Wanzhou incident is only a tipping point for the outside world to see the true nature of the Chinese Communist Party.

Manthorpe said, “We can see how China is trying to be able to influence public life, business life and academic life in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and Canada. The bits and pieces disclosed in the Meng Wanzhou incident are exactly the same as what was mentioned in the book. This invisible penetration of Western countries is terrible. Do you ask me whether China is dangerous? I said that the Chinese people are not dangerous, but the Chinese Communist Party is absolutely dangerous and terrible.”

“This (Meng Wanzhou incident) is a very important and positive wake-up call for Canadian political leaders and ordinary Canadians, that we have to adjust and revisit our relations with China. Dealing with China should depend on reality and cannot be based on our own expectations.”

A typical example in the book is how China stole Canada’s nuclear research program, the Slowpoke nuclear reactor. This nuclear reactor was a unique research innovation of Canada in the 1970s. But over the years, the details of this nuclear research were leaked to China bit by bit. Later, when a Canadian researcher visited China, he was surprised to find that China was stealing, copying, and reproducing the Canadian technology. In this competition of nuclear research, China completely defeated Canada.

Source: Radio Free Asia, February 2, 2019
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/junshiwaijiao/lf-02022019132637.html