Geo-Strategic Trend - 56. page

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin announced on May 24 that State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi will pay official visits to the Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, and Timor-Leste.  The visits will take place from May 26 to June 4. He will pay a “cloud visit” to the Federated States of Micronesia, hold a video meeting with the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of the Cook Islands and the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Niue, and host the second China-Pacific Island Countries Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Fiji.

China has recently disclosed that it signed a security treaty with the Solomon Islands, which includes police training,  a possible military exchange and setting up a naval base in the Solomon Islands for the People’s Liberation Army.

An intelligence officer for a U.S. ally said that Beijing is negotiating with Kiribati and at least one other Pacific island on a treaty similar to the Solomon Islands’ treaty.

Sources:
1. People’s Daily, May 26, 2022
http://cpc.people.com.cn/n1/2022/0526/c64094-32430646.html
2. Radio France International, May 21, 2022
https://www.rfi.fr/cn/国际/20220521-中国寻求与基里巴斯签协议-美澳担忧

Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and former President of Chile, began a high-profile visit to China’s Xinjiang China on May 24. Beijing is accused of a brutal crackdown on Uighur Muslims.

The Chinese government has isolated Bachelet’s delegation from Western media on the grounds of the epidemic. As details of the exact locations of the visit have not been released, questions have been raised as to whether such a visit is a controlled tour.

According to the website of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, the Chinese government made its goals clear before Bachelet entered Xinjiang. At a one-on-one meeting with Michelle Bachelet on Monday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi expressed hope that this visit would help clarify the “misinformation” about China.

To that end, Wang gave Bachelet a copy of Xi Jinping’s book. According to China’s state media, it was an English translation of “Excerpts from Xi Jinping’s Discourses on Respecting and Safeguarding Human Rights,” .

Source: Radio France International, May 24, 2022
https://rfi.my/8RYY

“One person was dead and several others injured during a shooting that took place at a California church on Sunday,” the police said.

Sheriff’s deputies in Orange County responded to a report of a shooting at the Geneva Presbyterian Church on El Toro Road in Laguna Woods at around 2 p.m. local time. “Four victims have been critically wounded, one with minor injuries,” the Orange County Sheriff’s Department wrote on Twitter. “All victims are adults and are en-route to the hospital. One victim is deceased at the scene.”

The suspect David Wenwei Chou was arrested and charged with one count of murder and five counts of attempted murder. Chou is a second-generation waishengren – born in Taiwan to those who had evacuated from mainland China during the ROC’s retreat in 1949.

County sheriff Don Barnes suspects it to be a politically motivated hate crime regarding Taiwanese-Chinese tensions. According to his statements, there were notes in Chou’s vehicle alluding to “his hatred of the Taiwanese people,” which is believed to stem from his past residence there, possibly during his youth. The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan has played a significant role in Taiwan’s democratization.

Chou was not affiliated with the Taiwanese church. He was pictured as a retired professor in a 2019 local news story on the founding of the Las Vegas chapter of the National Association for China’s Peaceful Unification (NACPU), also known as The China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification (CCPPNR). CCPPNR is an umbrella organization, founded in 1988, by the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to promote unification between mainland China and Taiwan on terms defined solely by the People’s Republic of China. In September 2020, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated that the State Department had begun reviewing the activities of the CCPPNR in the U.S. In October 2020, the State Department designated the NACPU a foreign mission of the People’s Republic of China.

Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), May 17, 2022
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202205170148.aspx

Singapore’s primary Chinese language newspaper Lianhe Zaobao recently reported that the latest survey report of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China showed that China’s strict COVID control measures have brought huge uncertainty to European companies in China. Nearly 60 percent of the companies have lowered their annual revenue forecasts as a result. China’s image as an investment destination has also been affected. More than half of the companies lowered their revenue forecasts by 6 percent to 15 percent, and more than 30 percent of companies lowered their revenue forecasts by more than 16 percent. Around 77 percent of the respondents expressed the belief that China’s attractiveness as an investment destination has declined. Around 23 percent are considering moving current or planned investments out of China. As many as 75 percent of the companies surveyed said that their operations were negatively affected. This negativity was reflected in three main aspects. These are logistics and warehousing pressure, business travel, as well as the cancellation of offline meetings. What these businesses need is a time frame for reopening. Compared with the impact of the lockdown measures, the impact of the Russian-Ukrainian war on European companies in China is much less.

Source: Lianhe Zaobao, May 7, 2022
http://www.kzaobao.com/shiju/20220507/116457.html

On May 04, 2022, Epoch Times reported that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has dealt a serious setback to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) “Belt and Road,” a $4 trillion global strategic plan that it has implemented for nearly a decade. As the CCP is reluctant to condemn Russia, opposes sanctions against Russia, and cooperates with Russia with “No Limit,” the differences between the CCP and the Western free world in terms of values and between democracy and totalitarianism have been further exposed. The West’s distrust of the CCP has thus deepened, causing the West to drift further  away from China. Also, the future of China-EU trade is not optimistic. This has forced the CCP to look eastward.

The frequency and volume of “China-Europe Railway Express” have plummeted 

The “Belt and Road” mainly transports Chinese goods to Europe through the “China-Europe Railway Express (CERE)” via Russia, Belarus and Poland, which runs more than 98 percent of the China-Europe Railway Express. Since European customers are resisting the Russian invasion, many European companies do not want their products to be transported through Russian territory and have basically terminated the CERE via Russia. The frequency and volume of the CERE have dropped significantly and the flow of railroad cargo has decreased by 30 percent and, in some instances, even as much as 50 percent.

Therefore, in the short term, China must switch from rail transport to sea transport, or bypass Russia-Belarus and take the route through  the Caspian Sea and Turkey. This route, however, is immature and has limited transportation capacity, long cycle times and high prices.

The “China-Pakistan Economic Corridor” has serious security risks

The Southern route of the “Belt and Road” is the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). It goes through Pakistan to the southwestern port of Gwadar, that is under construction. Its eventual use is still pending. Much worse is that there are serious security concerns.

The fishermen of Gwadar port account for more than 70 percent of the local population and large Chinese trawlers have occupied the fishing areas of the locals and robbed the local fishermen of their jobs. The economic prosperity promised by the “China-Pakistan Economic Corridor” has not materialized and people have become poorer. The local ethnic independent armed group, the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), opposes any Chinese investment. Since November 15 last year, thousands of local people have launched a series of protests. Chinese citizens have become the targets of suicide bombings by the BLA. For example, on April 26, a suicide bombing attack against the Chinese occurred in Karachi, a city in southern Pakistan, killing three Chinese nationals. It was the work of the BLA.

The CCP tries to find a way to the east 

On April 21, in a video speech at the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2022, the CCP’s General Secretory Xi Jinping reported that it was China’s intention to work actively to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and join the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA). Shortly after the speech, China signed a security agreement with the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific.

Katsuji Nakazawa, former China bureau chief for Nikkei Asia, determined that “China’s (the CCP’s) latest development in the Pacific is related to the stagnation of the ‘Belt and Road’ due to the Russia-Ukraine war. Its attempts to create a large-scale economic zone extending westward from Eurasia have been bogged down because of the Russian invasion and China (CCP) now has to look east.”

Related postings on Chinascope:
• Russia-Ukraine War Accelerates Deterioration of CCP’s “Belt and Road” Global Strategy – Chinascope

Source:
Epoch Times, May 4, 2022.https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/22/5/4/n13726633.htm

The European Parliament passed a resolution on May 5, 2022, expressing their “serious concerns” over the ongoing, systematic and inhumane harvesting of organs from Chinese dissidents, especially Falun Gong practitioners, Uyghurs, Tibetans, Christians, and other Muslims.

The resolution states “The People’s Republic of China has extremely low rates of voluntary organ donations owing to traditional beliefs; . . . Whereas China declared that it had stopped using organs from executed prisoners in 2015 and had launched a national donation system, without, however, ever completely banning the practice, which still remains legal;”

“The organ transplant system in China does not comply with the WHO’s requirements for transparency and traceability in organ procurement pathways, and whereas the Chinese Government has resisted independent scrutiny of the system; whereas voluntary and informed consent is a precondition for ethical organ donation;” hence the resolution.

The resolution “calls for the EU and its Member States to raise the issue of organ harvesting in China at every Human Rights Dialogue. It insists that the EU and its Member States publicly condemn organ transplant abuses in China; it calls on the Member States to take the necessary actions in order to prevent transplant tourism to China by their citizens and to raise awareness of this issue among their citizens traveling to China.”

Source: Radio Free Asia, May 6, 2022
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/junshiwaijiao/cl-05062022131145.html