Geo-Strategic Trend - 71. page

The Fourth World Laureates Forum opened on November 1 in Shanghai. China’s state newspaper People’s Daily reported that more than 130 of the world’s top scientists, including 68 Nobel Laureates, are participating in the 3-day event.

The forum organizers announced the creation of the World Laureates Association Prize, including two individual awards: the Mathematics and Intelligence Science Award, and the Medical and Life Science Award. Each is to be awarded once a year, with an award amount of RMB 10 million (US$1.6 million). The awards will be launched formally and awarded in 2022. The award money comes from the Shanghai World Laureates Development Fund, with a contribution of 500 million yuan ($78 million) from Sequoia China.

The World Laureates Association and the Chinese Association for Science and Technology (CAST), jointly organized the 4th World Laureates Forum under the guidance of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Chinese Academy of Engineering.  (CAE). CAST, CAS, and CAE are all Chinese government agencies.

The World Laureates Association was established in Shanghai in 2019. There are 72 scientist members, including 51 Nobel Prize Laureates, six Wolf Prize winners, six Lasker Award winners, four Turing Award winners, two MacArthur ‘Genius Grants’ winners, and one Fields Medal winner.

Source: People’s Daily, November 2, 2021
http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/html/2021-11/02/nw.D110000renmrb_20211102_4-13.htm

Singapore’s primary Chinese language newspaper Lianhe Zaobao recently reported that the United States has replaced China as India’s largest trade partner, while China currently ranks second. According to data that the Indian Ministry of Commerce released, from January to September this year, the bilateral trade volume between India and the United States surged by 50 percent, reaching US$28 billion. During the same period, India’s trade with China increased by 46 percent, reaching $25.3 billion. While India’s relationship with China has deteriorated, it has rapidly strengthened its relationship with the United States and its allies. At the end of September, Indian Prime Minister Modi attended the first face-to-face summit of the US-Japan-India-Australia Security Dialogue (QUAD) during his visit to Washington. The growth of U.S.-India trade is crucial to maintaining and enhancing the U.S.-India strategic partnership. Apart from being members of the World Trade Organization, the United States and India do not have any bilateral trade agreements.

Source: Lianhe Zaobao, October 18, 2021
https://www.zaobao.com.sg/news/world/story20211018-1204362

On October 20, A Japanese private nonprofit group, “Genron NPO,” and the China International Publishing Group, a Chinese Communist Party-owned foreign-language publishing organization, released the results of a joint public opinion survey conducted in both countries. The number of Chinese people who answered that they have a “bad” impression of Japan increased by 13.2 percentage points over last year to 66.1 percent. Genron NPO said the reasons are the intensification of the U.S.-China confrontation and historical issues.

Previously, since 2013, impressions of Japan had been on an improving trend. The reason for the worsened impression of Japan is that more Chinese people, by an increase of 8.7 percentage points, blamed Japanese politicians’ for their inappropriate words and actions. Also, many Chinese said they could not understand why Japan follows the U.S. in foreign relations. A representative from Genron NPO had the following analysis: “The disruption of tourist visits to Japan due to the epidemic, which had been the driving force behind the improvement in impressions, is also a major factor.” He pointed out, “Communication between the government and the people has decreased, and the focus is now heavily on confrontation.”

The population of Japanese people who have a negative impression of China also increased. It grew by 1.2 percentage points to 90.9 percent. About half of them cited Chinese official ships sailing near the Senkaku Islands (known as the Diaoyu Islands in China) as the reason.

Source: Kyodo News, Chinese channel, October 20, 2021
https://china.kyodonews.net/news/2021/10/70b859022627-66.html

In 2020, Hungary received a US$1.9 billion 20-year-term loan from China for a railway construction project. Hungary’s foreign ministry said that the contract agreement with China must be kept confidential. If it were not, it would be detrimental to the national interest. On October 7, 2021, a Hungarian court ruled that the government must make the contract public by October 22.

In 2014, Hungary, China and Serbia signed the original memorandum of understanding to rebuild and expand the railway line between Budapest, the Hungarian capital, and Belgrade, the Serbian capital. The long-stalled project, which has been on hold since 2017, is planned to rebuild and expand the 150-kilometre (93 miles) line between Budapest and Kelebia (a village in Southern Hungary). Construction in Serbia will begin in 2018. China is to provide 85 percent of the financing in the form of loans and Hungary will provide 15 percent.

In 2020, Hungary received the 20-year loan of $1.9 billion of the from China. In April of the same year, the Hungarian parliament voted to keep all details of the railway project confidential, including a feasibility study of its profitability, stressing that it was necessary in order to obtain the loan from the Bank of China.

Bernadette Szel, a member of Hungary’s independent opposition party, filed a lawsuit to make the Chinese loan agreement public. On October 7, Szel won the second appeal. The court ruled that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had not attached any credible evidence that the issuance of the contract would harm Hungary’s national interests. and that the documents must be published within 15 days.

According to Reuters, the railway project, part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, will be China’s first major infrastructure project in the European Union. The aim is to help transport Chinese goods from Greece to Western Europe. It is viewed as Beijing’s efforts to open new foreign trade links within the EU. The Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has been a strong supporter of the project.

Source: Radio Free Asia, October 20, 2021
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/junshiwaijiao/cl-10202021131904.html

Taiwan business investments in mainland China have dropped by almost half from 61.2 per cent to 33.3 per cent in the past decade. This suggests that Taiwanese businesses are fleeing China in large numbers. Those who are still doing business in China face mounting business risks.

Lin Zonghong, a researcher at the Institute of Sociology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Taiwan recently spoke at an online forum regarding Taiwan business investment risks in the mainland. According to Lin, Taiwan business investment in the mainland can be divided into three stages. The first stage was from 1992 to 2007. That was when Taiwan’s Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the mainland kept rising. By 2002, it passed 60 percent of its total FDI. From the 2008 global financial crisis to 2014 when the Sunflower Student Movement broke out in Taiwan, FDI from Taiwan in Mainland reached its peak. The Sunflower Student Movement refers to a movement in which a coalition of students and civic groups organized  to protest the passing of the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement (CSSTA) by the then ruling party, the  Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). The third stage is post 2015 when Taiwan investments were withdrawn from the mainland and shifted to other southeast Asian countries and the U.S..

Lin believes that China’s FDI has been overstated because it includes investments from Hong Kong, which accounts for 75-80 percent of the total. Those investments from Hong Kong were originally from the mainland. They were re-directed through Hong Kong into the mainland just to qualify for foreign investment tax incentives. If the inflow from Hong Kong was excluded, China would have seen a negative FDI.

Since 2007, Taiwan businesses have been losing tax and labor benefits that they used to receive on the mainland. Many of them ended up moving to middle or western regions in China. In 2007, there were still 356 Taiwanese businesses in the mainland. By 2017, the number was 124. By 2020, only 108 were left. Also compared to Taiwan, business costs are higher in the mainland. The data suggests that the gross profit for Taiwan businesses operating in the mainland is less than it is for those operating in Taiwan.

Since Taiwan businesses entered the mainland in 1998, Taiwan has seen factory closures, unemployment, low wages among the younger generation and an increase in poverty. Lin reiterated that Taiwan businesses must understand the business risks in the mainland and look at the current business environment in the mainland as a warning for future business decisions.

Source: Epoch Times, October 17, 2021
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/21/10/17/n13310415.htm

China’s state-controlled Zijin Mining Group Co. acquired all the shares of Canada’s Neo Lithium Corp. for Canadian$6.50 per share in cash, for a total amount of C$960 million, making it the second acquisition a Chinese company has made within two months of a Canadian lithium mining company.

The transaction is still subject to consideration and approval at the Neo Lithium’s shareholders’ special meeting. It will also require regulatory and court approvals from the Chinese and from Canadian regulators.

Neo Lithium’s core asset is the Tres Quebradas (3Q) Lithium Project, a newly discovered lithium saline and brine reservoir complex in Catamarca Province, the biggest lithium producer in Argentina. It is estimated that its total lithium carbonate-equivalent resources are approximately 7.565 million tons. In September, Chinese electric vehicle battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL) acquired all shares of Canada’s Millennial Lithium Corp. in a cash transaction worth Can$377 million. CATL, is a supplier to the U.S. company Tesla Inc. It also became the third-largest shareholder in Neo Lithium last year after purchasing 10 million of its shares.

Source: Radio France International, October 11, 2021
https://rfi.my/7oq3

Well-known Chinese news site Sina (NASDAQ: SINA) recently reported that Senior Taliban officials and U.S. representatives will hold talks to discuss the containment of extremist organizations in Afghanistan and relax the conditions for the evacuation of foreign citizens and Afghans from the country. The Taliban stated that they did not want US counter-terrorism assistance and warned Washington not to carry out any “over-the-horizon” attacks on Afghan territory from beyond the country’s borders. A U.S. official said that the U.S. will seek a Taliban commitment to allow Americans and other foreign nationals to leave Afghanistan, as well as Afghans who have worked for the U.S. military or government and other Afghan allies. Representatives of the Afghan Taliban Provisional Government traveled to Doha, where they will meet with the U.S. delegation. This is the first face-to-face meeting between the two sides since the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan.

Source: Sina, October 9, 2021
https://news.sina.com.cn/w/2021-10-09/doc-iktzqtyu0493790.shtml