Geo-Strategic Trend - 145. page

People’s Daily reported that, on the afternoon of July 19, the State Council Information Office, the State Administration of Radio and Television, the Chinese Embassy in Senegal, and the Senegalese Ministry of Information jointly organized the opening ceremony of the “China Film and Television African Screening Program (French Region)” in Dakar City in Senegal. The StarTimes Media Company in Senegal and Senegal Radio and Television hosted the ceremony. At the launching ceremony, the guests watched the promotional film for the “China Film and Television African Projection Program (French Region).” According to the plan, 26 Chinese films and 20 Chinese TV dramas dubbed in French will be screened in several French-speaking countries in Africa such as Senegal. The selected programs will be aired through the mainstream media of Senegal, the platform of the “African Satellite TV Project,” the satellite TV platform of the Star Times Group, and its “Mobile Cinema” stations.

Source: People’s Daily, July 28, 2018
http://world.people.com.cn/n1/2018/0728/c1002-30175334.html

The Paper.cn, a China based news portal, reported on the three-week long 2018 young sinologist training program that ended on the afternoon of July 27, with a closing ceremony held at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. Thirty-two young sinologists from 27 countries participated in the training.

Scholars from the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, Fudan University, East China Normal University, Tongji University, and Shanghai International Studies University gave lectures at the training session. The trainees also visited historical, business, and political sites in Shanghai and Beijing.

The Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism hosts the Youth Sinologist Training Program. Launched in 2014, the program has finished 12 sessions, graduating 360 young sinologists from 95 countries. The project “aims to build a global platform to support overseas young Sinologists in conducting China research and to create opportunities for young talent in the field to exchange and cooperate with outstanding Chinese academic, cultural, and educational institutions and scholars and to provide them with convenient and substantive assistance in their research.” It also “takes the opportunity of personnel training to promote long-term and stable relations between the academic institutions of different countries, Chinese institutions, and think tanks, in order to achieve mutual exchanges and mutual learning, and the joint promotion of the development of China studies.” In 2018, the program started its Spring, Summer, and Autumn classes in 6 cities including Chongqing, Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Xi’an. The number of trainees this year will exceed 200.

Source: The Paper, July 29, 2018
https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_2302374

At the Johannesburg Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in 2015, China’s President Xi Jinping proposed that China implement the “10 Cooperation Plan” with African countries over the next three years. One of the 10, the Humanities Cooperation Plan, included a proposal “to implement satellite TV projects for 10,000 villages in Africa.”

A recent People’s Daily report gave an update, with quotes from villagers in Kenya, Senegal, and Zambia. They expressed gratitude toward the Chinese government and President Xi for being able to watch TV programs for free using set-top boxes that the Chinese company installed.

According to the report, on July 20, 2018, the local digital TV project was launched in a village in Uganda’s capital, Kampala. According to the plan, the project will select 500 villages in the country and provide digital TV equipment for 1,500 public institutions and 10,000 households without charge, so that villagers can watch TV programs for free. The project is expected to be completed in mid-September, covering 60 percent of the entire Republic of Uganda.

StarTimes Ltd. is the Chinese digital TV service provider that Beijing picked to implement the program. The company is currently connecting digital TV signals for 10,112 villages in 25 African countries. For each village, it will provide two sets of solar projection TV systems and one digital TV system free of charge and will install digital TV set-top boxes for 20 families, also free of charge.

StarTimes has been involved in the African digital TV market for over ten years. As early as 2011, it launched a TV program translation center. The company has developed into a sizable program translation base with nine languages, including Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Swahili, Hausa, Yoruba, Luganda, and Tweed and a capacity for 10,000 hours of programming. It also established a comprehensive content system, with more than 480 channels including internationally renowned channels, Chinese mainstream channels, African local channels and 42 self-operated channels.

The report quoted praise from Zambian president, Edgar Lungu, and Uganda’s First Lady and Cabinet Minister of Education and Sports, Janet Museveni. It also mentioned the upcoming Beijing Summit of FOCAC in September, which will “make new plans for the China-Africa comprehensive strategic partnership.”

Source: People’s Daily, July 27
http://world.people.com.cn/n1/2018/0727/c1002-30173141.html

On Tuesday, July 24, the East Asian Olympic Committee voted to rescind an agreement for Taichung Taiwan to host the first-ever East Asian Youth Games in 2019, a decision that was made four years ago in 2014. Huanqiu published an opinion article claiming that the voting result aims at Taiwan’s intent to use politics to influence sports and no one can challenge “Chinese Taipei” as the name to be used at the Olympic Games. It referred to Taiwan’s intent to hold a name change referendum which proposed to change its name from “Chinese Taipei” to “Taiwan” during the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. The article stated that results of the vote of the eight East Asian Olympic Committee members broadcast the message that the decision “perfectly fit the spirit of Olympics” and the end result is a well-deserved lesson for “Taiwan Independence” forces.

Source: Huanqiu, July 24, 2018
http://opinion.huanqiu.com/editorial/2018-07/12565479.html

Popular Hong Kong newspaper Oriental Daily recently reported via its online news site that, according to Russian anti-drug authorities, China is now Russia’s largest drug supplier. Around 90 percent of Russia’s chemical-based drugs are sourced from China. The primary channel for the Chinese drug dealers to ship drugs to Russia is the postal mail system. The drugs are mailed into Russia as “food.” For example, the Russian Rostov Court announced on July 10 that it is currently hearing a case against some senior Cossack officials illegally working with Chinese drug dealers in Jilin Province, China. According to recent Russian reports, most of the drugs from China are packaged in plant oil bottles or buried in half-baked food like dumplings. The Russian police are currently improving the process of inspecting packages of Chinese food that sent in the mail. Oriental Daily has been Hong Kong’s number one newspaper; it has been in circulation since 1976, with a record readership of over 3,100,000.

Source: Oriental Daily, July 20, 2018
http://hk.on.cc/cn/bkn/cnt/news/20180720/bkncn-20180720090647833-0720_05011_001_cn.html

The ongoing U.S. – China trade war could have dealt a heavy blow to China’s export-oriented enterprises. According to the Russian government-owned news agency Sputnik News, Xu Ningning, the executive director of the government backed China-ASEAN Business Council, advised that China and ASEAN should cooperate in manufacturing.

In fact, the joint production plan was implemented a long time ago. Against the current backdrop, the cooperation between China and Southeast Asian countries will gain new momentum. China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has a Science and Technology Park under construction in its neighboring country of Vietnam. The goods produced there, which can be labeled “Made in Vietnam” according to the Rules of Origin, are not subject to the U.S. tariffs. The question is then whether the U.S. will exert its influence against such cooperation.

Chen Fengying, a researcher at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, told Sputnik News that, “Every country focuses on its own national interests. Because of the pressure from the U.S., they are also looking for a new development model, such as the cooperation between Vietnam and China. As to whether the U.S. will obstruct the deal, I think that even if the U.S. has such an idea, it may not be realized. Not every country completely obeys the U.S.”

Chen added, “The changes in the external environment will prompt Asia to strengthen cooperation. On the one hand, we must unite the Asian countries; on the other hand, we cannot ignore cooperation with the outside world. Asia has a good regional cooperation mechanism. Examples are the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and ‘One Belt, One Road.’”

Trade statistics show that the mutual interests between China and ASEAN are growing. In the first five months of this year, the trade volume between China and ASEAN increased by 20 percent, while the overall growth rate of China’s foreign trade during the same period was 16.8 percent. Trade between China and the EU increased by 15.1 percent. At the same time, the trade between China and the U.S. was slightly behind with a growth of 13.1 percent.

Source: Sputnik News, July 13, 2018
http://sputniknews.cn/opinion/201807131025879187/