Skip to content

Geo-Strategic Trend - 67. page

Chinese Student Wanted for Acquiring Japanese Security Software under False Identity

Japanese media including NHK and Yomiuri News reported on December 28 that Japanese police have identified a Chinese student who entered Japan and was suspected of attempting to  purchase Japanese high-tech security software illegally. He was apparently under the command of a Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officer. The Japanese Police Department has obtained an arrest warrant for the student and will soon issue an international warrant.

Police investigators say the Chinese student, in his 30s, is suspected of having attempted the purchase used the name of a fictitious Japanese company and the person who was in charge in November 2016. The PLA officer who contacted him belonged to China’s “61419th Army,” a unit believed to be the Chinese hacking group Tick, which is responsible for cyberattacks on Japanese companies and research institutions.

Fortunately, the transaction was not concluded because the software company found it suspicious. As the Chinese student has returned to China, Japanese police have received permission to arrest him on suspicion of fraud. They will soon issue an international warrant through Interpol. The Japanese police believe that China is trying to buy Japanese high-tech security software to analyze the weaknesses of Japanese companies’ systems and collect intelligence to carry out cyberattacks.

Source: Radio Free Asia, December 28, 2021
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/japan-12282021094647.html

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

Reference News: China and Japan Agreed to Establish a Defense Hotline

Reference News, a well-known branch of Xinhua News, recently reported that, on the December 27, Chinese State Councilor and Defense Minister Wei Fenghe held a video conference with the Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi. The call took about two hours, which exceeded the original scheduled time. The two defense ministers agreed to strengthen bilateral strategic communication and manage risks to prevent conflicts from escalating. Also, they agreed that a defense hotline will be established in 2022. The Japanese Cabinet recently approved a preliminary budget for 2022. The annual increase in the defense budget was 1.1 percent. It not only marks the tenth consecutive year of growth in Japan’s defense budget, but also breaks Japan’s long-standing rule of capping the increase in the defense budget at under one percent of the nation’s GDP. Singapore’s primary Chinese language newspaper Lianhe Zaobao also reported on this news and indicated that, during the call, Nobuo Kishi emphasized the importance of maintaining stability in the Taiwan Strait. This point was left out in the Reference News report.

Sources:
(1) Reference News, December 29, 2021
http://www.cankaoxiaoxi.com/china/20211229/2464431_2.shtml
(2) Lianhe Zaobao, December 28, 2021
https://www.zaobao.com.sg/realtime/world/story20211228-1227197

Briefings | | |   Defense/Military Geo-Strategic Trend

Global Times: China Mobile Forced to Terminate Canadian Operations

Global Times recently reported that CMLink, a subsidiary of China Mobile Canada, announced on December 28, that, at the request of the Canadian Federal Government, the company will cease its operations on January 5, 2022. Users can apply for refunds from the same day. This is yet another example of the Canadian government’s use of “national security” to suppress Chinese companies. Radio Free Asia (RFA) Chinese Edition also reported that China Mobile landed in Canada in 2015 and got popular among users who travel frequently  between Canada and the China/Hong Kong region. At the beginning of 2021, the Canadian government began to review China Mobile Canada based on national security considerations. It issued an order on August 9 instructing the company to divest itself of its parent company’s shares or terminate its Canadian operations. The company filed in court against the government’s order. It lost the case. Analysts expressed the belief that China Mobile Canada’s refusal to draw a clear line with the parent company confirmed the fact that the so-called Chinese overseas subsidiaries can operate independently is nonsense.

Sources:
(1) Global Times, December 30, 2021
https://world.huanqiu.com/article/46C1aJ3bt55
(2) RFA Chinese, December 29, 2021
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/junshiwaijiao/lf2-12292021123434.html

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

Xi’An’s Pandemic Lockdown Impacted Global Chip Supply

Well-known Chinese news site Sohu (NASDAQ: SOHU) recently reported that globalization demonstrated its power when a critical supply chain like the one for chip supply got impacted by lockdown policies in the Chinese city of Xi’An. Samsung issued an announcement on December 29 that its Xi’An manufacturing factories’ schedule had to be adjusted for the protection of the health of the employees due to the breakout of Covid in the city. Samsung has two large scale 3D NAND factories in Xi’An, which hold 42.3 percent of Samsung’s capacity, or 15.3 percent of the global supply. Samsung warned about the significant reduction of its output and stopped offering NAND quotes. Samsung is the world’s largest NAND Flash provider with a global market share of 34 percent. At the same time, Xi’An also has Micron’s DRAM memory packaging and testing plant. Micron is the world’s third largest DRAM chip manufacturer. The company said the factory is seeing manufacturing delays due to a lack of labor; as a result, new supply arrangements may be delayed accordingly. The Micron factory is currently running at 40 to 50 percent of its capacity. All these will cause the global short-term supply of storage semiconductors to face uncertainty.

Source: Sohu, December 30, 2021
https://www.sohu.com/a/513328179_351305

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources Geo-Strategic Trend Information/Technology

Lianhe Zaobao: China Is Helping Saudi Arabia Make Ballistic Missiles

Singapore’s primary Chinese language newspaper Lianhe Zaobao recently reported that, according to U.S. Cable News Network (CNN), U.S. intelligence agencies said that Saudi Arabia is actively developing domestically produced ballistic missiles with the assistance of China. This development may cause a major chain reaction throughout the Middle East. The latest satellite images show that Saudi Arabia is currently manufacturing missiles. At a minimum one site is funded by China. Weapons experts at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies expressed the belief that, considering the facility was built with China’s assistance and new intelligence assessments show Saudi Arabia has recently purchased sensitive ballistic missile technology from China, China may have designed the missiles made there. Sources familiar with the matter said that U.S. officials from multiple agencies, including the White House National Security Council (NSC), have been informed in recent months that classified intelligence has shown that China and Saudi Arabia have conducted multiple large-scale transfers of sensitive ballistic missile technology. Both the NSC and the CIA declined to comment on this piece. If Saudi Arabia successfully develops and manufactures missiles, Iran will be unlikely to agree to stop manufacturing missiles. It will also become more difficult for the Biden administration to limit Iran’s ambitions to manufacture nuclear weapons.

Source: Lianhe Zaobao, December 24, 2021
https://www.zaobao.com.sg/realtime/china/story20211224-1226128

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

BBC Chinese: Pro-Mainland Candidates Won Almost All Seats in HK Legislative Council Elections

BBC Chinese recently reported that the results of the Hong Kong Legislative Council election were released on December 20. Eighty-nine of the ninety seats were captured by pro-mainland candidates. Only the social welfare functional constituency seat was filled by the candidate who claimed not to be pro-mainland. This is the first election in Hong Kong after the implementation of the HK National Security Law and after drastically revising the election system to implement “Patriots Run Hong Kong.” Nathan Law, the former Hong Kong Legislative Council member in exile, said that the low voter turnout rate indicates that the Hong Kong people are “boycotting” this election. It is a strong signal to the international community showing that the people of Hong Kong do not have free and fair elections. The district direct-elections had a turnout rate of 30 percent. Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam said that the Hong Kong government has not set a target for turnout rate. Experts explained that the low voter turnout was expected because the pro-democracy supporters do not have their favorite candidates available (to vote for) and the real opposition has either been jailed or has gone into exile. They have no way to participate in the current system.

Source: BBC Chinese, December 20, 2021
https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-59723776

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

Kyodo Chinese: Japan and the U.S. Drafted Combat Plans for Emergencies in Taiwan

Major Japanese news agency Kyodo recently reported in its Chinese edition that sources close to the Japanese government have confirmed that the Japanese military and the U.S. military have formulated a draft of a new Japan-U.S. joint operations plan that envisages emergencies in Taiwan. The contents include that, in the initial stage of the emergency, the U.S. Marine Corps will set up temporary military bases for offensive purposes on the Ryukyu Islands – from Kagoshima Prefecture to Okinawa Prefecture. Local residents are likely to be involved in the fighting. It is expected that, at the Japan-U.S. Security Consultative Committee (2+2) meeting attended by foreign affairs and defense ministers to be held early next year, a consensus will be reached on officially starting operations for the formal formulation of plans. Normally, no new bases would be built. However, in the initial stage as the urgency of emergencies in Taiwan increases, the U.S. troops will be deployed with the support of the Japanese military. The establishment of U.S. military bases in Japan requires the Japanese government to make policy decisions and improve relevant laws on land use and protection of local residents. In the joint statement of the Japan-US summit meeting in April this year, Taiwan Strait Stability was included after about half a century. The two sides secretly advanced discussions on the formulation of a joint combat plan.

Source: Kyodo Chinese, December 23, 2021
https://china.kyodonews.net/news/2021/12/544994c0a929.html

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

Subnational Infiltration: Using Western Countries’ Local Governments to Counter the State’s Policy

The Voice of America (VOA)  published an article that discussed two research reports exploring the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) subnational infiltration of Western countries. According to the reports, in a systematic way, the CCP takes advantage of the pluralistic and decentralized nature of the Western political system to rope in and encourage local governments to confront and dismantle, at the sub-national level, their state’s negative policies toward China. The VOA called it “encircling the cities from rural areas,” a military strategy that the CCP used to win the civil war in China in the late 1940’s.

In the U.S., the CCP’s strategy is to bypass Washington and to target the governors, mayors, and non-governmental organizations directly. The purpose is to foster a positive connection between Beijing and the local officials or organizations.

The two reports refer to the “All Over the Map” strategy. This strategy addresses the Chinese Communist Party’s “subnational Interests in the United States” as reported by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) and the “Big fish in small ponds strategy,” which is China’s subnational diplomacy in Europe” as discussed in an article by the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS).

The FDD report states that China has a long history of trying to influence local governments in the United States, including through events and forums that promote U.S.-China relations and friendship cities (or sister cities), Internet forums, governors’ forums, and other examples. Though at the national level, the U.S., holds a critical attitude toward Beijing, the National Governors Association expresses positive descriptions about Beijing.

The MERICS article pointed out that, within the five biggest member countries of the European Union – Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Poland, local governments have established 146 partnerships with the CCP. In many situations, Beijing or its entities can sign investment or cooperation treaties with Europen cities or regions, which usually do not need the central government’s participation.

Source: VOA, December 7, 2021
https://www.voachinese.com/a/china-subnational-diplomacy-20211207/6343105.html

Hot Topics | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend US-China Relations