Geo-Strategic Trend - 139. page

On September 3, Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation.

Xi promised that, over the next three years, China will implement eight initiatives in terms of China-Africa cooperation in the fields of industrial promotion, infrastructure, trade, green development, capacity building, health, cultural exchanges, peace, and security.

China said it would establish a China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo and provide 1 billion yuan (US$146.3 million) in emergency aid to disaster-affected African countries. China will also implement 50 projects on trade facilitation and establish 50 aid projects on green development and environmental protection. In addition, China proposed that it would provide vocational training for African youth and upgrade 50 medical and healthcare assistance projects in Africa. Also, China plans to establish a China-Africa fund on peace and security cooperation for joint peacekeeping.

In total, China is to provide US$60 billion in financial support to Africa to accomplish the above initiatives.

In his speech, Xi said that China and Africa should expand their political dialogue and policy communication at all levels, strengthen mutual understanding and mutual support on issues involving core interests and major concerns, and maintain close cooperation on major international and regional issues.

Source: Xinhua, September 4, 2018
http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2018-09/04/c_1123374166.htm

Well-known Chinese news site Tencent News recently reported that Malaysia’s airline company Air Asia just announced it is cancelling its plan to establish a joint venture airline in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, China. In May 2017, Air Asia signed a deal with the China Everbright Group and the Henan government in Beijing to form the new airline focusing on the low-cost passenger air travel market. Air Asia was committed to investing in infrastructure construction, pilot training, airline crews, and logistics. However, Air Asia’s latest announcement said the signed memo had “expired” and it would not be renewed. The Malaysian airline did not explain the reason. The Malaysia government recently just called off two major infrastructure plans which were to be funded with loans from China. That move was widely considered as a major setback for the Chinese One Belt One Road initiative.

Source: Tencent News, September 1, 2018
https://xw.qq.com/cmsid/20180901A1M6DL00

In 2010, China overtook Japan and became the world’s second largest economy. However, Russian media commented that this happened because China artificially inflated its GDP figures.

Kommersant (The Businessman), Russia’s nationally distributed daily newspaper, published a long commentary on August 25, entitled “The Deception of the GDP.” The article claimed that some of the powerful ruling class have used GDP as a tool to achieve its goals. Although GDP shows the total economic activity of a country or a region for a period of time, can it really represent national strength?

For example, the article says that modern China is a vivid example of GDP worship. The amount of non-productive economic activity in China is huge, which artificially increases the GDP figure. To a certain extent, this is very similar to the practices of the former Soviet Union and Japan in 1980. Everyone knows what happened to those two countries.

According to the article, Beijing is using this at least discounted GDP figure to compare with and confront Western GDP figures and the results can be imagined. This is not to say that there is no unproductive economic activity in the western market economies, but it is far less than such economic activities in China.

The article explained that the growth of GDP does not mean the growth of economic strength. For example, a company built a large stadium. This investment activity did contribute a huge amount to GDP, but it did not create wealth for the company. On the contrary, it reduced the company’s wealth and even contributed to its financial difficulties. In this case, the growth of GDP negatively impacted economic power.

An economic analyst and TV show host commented on the Chinese economy, saying that it is a huge bubble and it may crash at any time. He once said at a seminar, “There is a very simple statistic to know: 75 percent of the Chinese people’s wealth is in the property market. You don’t need to explain anything else. The Chinese leaders think they are the smartest and can shrink the bubble slowly and painlessly.”

Russian experts said that many Chinese economics experts have graduated from American universities and they should understand the economy. The calculation of real economic strength should exclude non-productive financial investment from GDP, make adjustments for income distribution, and replace the GDP value with calculations of the basic assets of the society.

The problem in China is that the ruling class has its own purposes. Using data to show economic growth seems more important. Gradually, they have come to believe in the data that they themselves artificially inflated.

Source: Radio Free Asia, August 28, 2018
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/junshiwaijiao/lxy-08282018095756.html

Global Times reported the dramatic change in Australia’s Prime Minister that took place on August 24 by celebrating the fact that Malcolm Turnbull, who completely “screwed up the China-Australia relationship,” had “finally stepped down.” However, the report immediately mentioned that “the new guy just stabbed China in the back yesterday.” That refers to the new Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who is the sixth Prime Minister in eleven years. He just announced the day before, as the Treasurer of Australia, that Huawei would be banned from participating in building Australia’s 5G communications network. Huawei complained that the “disappointing” ban was totally “political” and was completely against the “spirit of free trade.” The report further mentioned that, in 2016, Morrison had also refused Chinese bidders from participating in the Ausgrid deal. However, Morrison did emphasize the importance of the China-Australia trade partnership a few years ago. The author concluded that, it seems the future of the China-Australia relationship is still full of uncertainty and that it might be a wise idea to wait until Australia holds its general election next year.

Source: Global Times, August 24, 2018
http://world.huanqiu.com/article/2018-08/12816478.html

Deutsche Welle reported on a telephone poll of 1,000 Hong Kong residents that was conducted on August 6-9. The results showed that 34 percent of those polled support Taiwan Independence while 54 percent disapprove. The end result is the same as the one conducted six month ago. However, among those whose ages are 18 through 29, 60 percent of those polled support Taiwan Independence. That result is consistent with the past three surveys conducted since 2017. As to the question of whether Taiwan should join the United Nations, 59 percent of all respondents said yes and 29 percent said no. The article quoted a research fellow from Hong Kong University who had an interview with Reuters. He said that even though Hong Kong people oppose Taiwan’s independence, they continue to support giving Taiwan more international space. Further analysis shows that the older age group tends to be inclined to oppose Taiwan and Tibet’s independence while the younger age group is more pessimistic about the reunification of the mainland with Taiwan.

Source: Deutsche Welle, August 24, 2018
https://p.dw.com/p/33gSa

Huanqiu quoted a report that Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post had published saying that Russia plans to provide one million hectares (2.5 million acres) of land to foreign investors. The article stated that this is good news for Beijing as it is dealing with a shortage in the supply of soybeans. The statistics show that, between July 2017 to May 2018, Beijing bought a record of 850,000 tons of soybeans from Russia. China has also decided to increase its domestic soybean production. According to the article, since Russian farmers have excessively utilized the most fertile land in the Eastern region of Russia, Chinese investors will have to use land in a region that is even more remote and lower in productivity. Some of the Russian farmers in the Far East region, however, say they do not like Chinese farmers because they tend to use too much pesticide and fertilizer. The person in charge of the Investment Department of the Russian Far East Investment and Export Agency said that 50 percent of the investment is expected to come from China.

Source: Huanqiu, August 16, 2018
http://oversea.huanqiu.com/article/2018-08/12729455.html

The German Government has issued warnings about China’s escalated acquisition efforts and has encouraged European companies to join forces in order to face the competition from China. Deutsche Welle reported that China has been obtaining top technology through the acquisition of foreign companies. It has also been acquiring infrastructure projects in Europe in order to gain political influence. Thomas Bareiß, Secretary of the Committee on Economic Affairs and Energy, said that the German Government inspected 80 acquisition proposals in 2017 and 30 percent of them were acquisition requests from Chinese companies. Bareiß has issued warnings before and said that, although Germany is a country that is very open to foreign investment, it shouldn’t underestimate the acquisition efforts that these Chinese investors have put forth and all the Eastern European countries should unite together on this issue. He said, “We can’t be too naive and too reckless. The competition in the international community requires a tough position. We are willing to face it, but it must be under fair and equal rules of the game. We are still far from it because the investment environment around the world is very different.” Recently, for the second time, China’s State Owned Company, the China Grid Corporation of China (SGCC) failed to acquire a 20 percent stake in the German transmission system operator, 50Hertz. The deal was awarded to the domestic development bank KfW after the intervention of Germany’s Federal Government. Meanwhile Bareiß also acknowledged that Germany needs more strong companies and it is more meaningful if the cooperation is among European companies such as Siemens and Alstom. Three years ago, the China National Automobile Group became the world’s largest railway vehicle manufacturer through merger and acquisition. Early this year, Siemens and Alstom decided to join forces to face off against the competition from the China National Automobile Group.

Source: Deutsche Welle, August 19, 2018
https://p.dw.com/p/33OPL?maca=zh-Twitter-sharing