Geo-Strategic Trend - 82. page

The Australian government is reconsidering its decision to lease the Darwin port to a Chinese-owned company and may suspend the lease in response to national security concerns.

In 2015, the government of the Northern Territory of Australia reached a lease agreement with the Chinese company, Landbridge Group. Landbridge paid a one-time rent of over AU$500 million for the right to operate the Port of Darwin for up to 99 years, claiming at the time that the deal would promote Australia-China trade and tourism.

Huangfu Jing, an Australian commentator, observed that, with the deterioration of Australia-China relations, local opposition has been growing louder and louder. “In the early years, the international environment had not come to the point it is at today. The mainstream (Australian) society, especially the business community, believed that we could make money and trade with China. It (the Northern Territory government) made use of such opinions and facilitated the sale for its own benefit.”

The Port of Darwin is a dual-use civilian and military port, where U.S. Marines are stationed on a rotational basis. Huangfu added, “Beijing actually monitors every move the US Marines make in the Northern Territory and (the deal) does far more damage to Australia’s national interests than what the rental income covers. Landbridge is ostensibly a private company, but few Chinese private enterprises that can invest overseas are not under Beijing’s control.”

Australian media reports that the National Security Committee in Canberra has asked the Department of Defence to review and advise on the lease. Prime Minister Morrison also said last week that if national security becomes an issue at the port, action should be taken.

Joseph Cheng, retired professor at the City University of Hong Kong, said the Darwin Port is sensitive not only because of the presence of U.S. troops, but also because China sees it as a breakthrough in promoting its “Belt and Road” strategy. “There is an immense ocean stretching from China to the South Pacific. If China could obtain some bases on some of the islands, it would be very helpful to China for it to maintain a global communication system and a global satellite monitoring system. It would be very convenient to have Darwin Port as a connection point in the middle. The port stretches north to Papua New Guinea and then to Indonesia. The waters between the north coast of Australia and Indonesia are also believed to have rich oil and other energy resources.”

Source: Radio Free Asia, May 3, 2021
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/gf-05032021064232.html

On Thursday April 29, China passed a newly amended Maritime Traffic Safety Law, over which a Taiwanese scholar expressed the concerns that Beijing is using the law to expand the gray zone of potential conflicts.

The National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s rubberstamp parliament, announced that the law will come into force on September 1.

Under Article 53 and Article 54, foreign vessels are required to report to the maritime authorities if they are submersible, nuclear powered, carry radioactive or poisonous materials or may in any other way endanger safety in navigation.

Article 92 stipulates that if a foreign ship may threaten the safety of China’s internal waters and territorial waters, the maritime authorities have the right to order it to leave. If a foreign ship violates Chinese laws and regulations on maritime traffic safety or prevention of pollution, the maritime authority may exercise the “right of hot pursuit.” The “right of hot pursuit” refers to the right of the authority of the coastal state to chase a foreign ship to the high seas, arrest those on board and bring the ship back to its port so they can face a trial. It can do this if it has sufficient reason to believe that the foreign ship has violated the laws and regulations of the state.

In addition, in the amended maritime law, China has changed the wording from the phrase “coastal waters” to “jurisdictional waters.

Su Tzu-yun, senior security analyst with Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, considers that both the Maritime Traffic Safety Law and the Maritime Police Law, a new law passed in January, are tools of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to claim and protect its national sovereignty and interests. The CCP is using the law to expand the gray area of conflict, and has raised concerns that this could become a loose cannon for maritime conflicts.

Su said that the Chinese government’s “jurisdictional waters” refers to “the internal waters, the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the exclusive economic zone, the continental shelf, and other waters under the jurisdiction of the People’s Republic of China,” which it defines more broadly than “coastal waters.” However, the CCP has built many artificial islands in the South China Sea and claims that the 12 nautical miles surrounding each of them are all territorial waters, which gives the CCP an excuse to enforce the law when other countries simply carry out free navigation missions.

Source: Central News Agency, April 30, 2021
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202104300257.aspx

The French newspaper Le Monde recently published two articles that describe how Beijing is actively engaging in sports diplomacy in Switzerland, the headquarters of many international sports organizations. It also describes how the Chinese government is building sports facilities in Africa, especially sports stadiums, to gain control over African heads of government, win local sports markets, and secure access to important sports events in the continent.

The Chinese government is making arrangements in the sports industry to serve its goal of becoming a geopolitical power. One article in Le Monde quotes Carole Gomez, a researcher at the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs, who commented that, until the 1950s, sports were marginally important for the Chinese government, except for fitness or training soldiers. Learning from the Cold War, the Chinese began to realize that the Olympic Games were not just a sporting event, and that it should not only participate in international sports competitions; China should also produce outstanding results to promote national pride.

Jean-Loup Chappelet, a professor at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, outlined the strategic pattern of China’s participation in international sports bodies. It started with the participation of athletes. China followed by actively winning competitions. Then the Chinese government started organizing events. Finally, China gained a seat on the international organizing committee of the sport. Beijing began with table tennis and gymnastics and gradually advanced to a few new sports such as climbing and rugby sevens. Beijing used its huge domestic market and the construction of sports facilities as bait to gain a seat in international sports organizations. . . .  Sources familiar with the International Olympic Committee told Le Monde that international sports are in fact a mirror of today’s international community. What’s going on in the IOC is similar to what goes on at the United Nations and at the World Trade Organization. Beijing is actively pursuing control of these international sports organizations just as it is in other international arenas. While Europe and the United States are leaders in most of the international sports organizations, China is closely following in their footsteps.

Another Le Monde article mentioned that in mid-March, Alassane Ouattara, President of the African country Ivory Coast, personally inaugurated a 60,000-seat stadium, a gift from China, in the northern part of the capital Abidjan. The finale of the 2023 African Cup of Nations, the main international men’s soccer competition in the continent, will be held in Ivory Coast, where China will build two more stadiums elsewhere in the country, in addition to the one in Abidjan. The total cost is expected to be more than 200 million euros. Le Monde commented that China has built and renovated nearly 100 stadiums on the continent in recent decades, apparently to strengthen diplomatic relations with African countries, to open access to local markets, and to secure support from African countries in international organizations such as the United Nations.

In recent years, with the number of countries participating in the tournament increasing from 16 to 24, the Africa Cup of Nations could not have been held without China-built stadiums. The organizers lamented that the countries hosting the tournament could not afford to build their own stadiums and had to rely on China. In January, the rights to broadcast the games were sold to a Chinese company, Star Times. According to internal U.S. diplomatic documents, over the last two decades, Star Times, which gathers intelligence for Beijing in Africa, has become a major player in digital media on the continent. In other words, the African Cup of Nations are often played in China-built stadiums and Chinese media broadcast them.

Source: Radio France International, April 29, 2021
https://rfi.my/7Lth.T

Finnish media recently reported that the city of Kemijärvi, located in Finland’s northernmost Lapland region, after notifying the Finnish Defence Forces, rejected an offer a Chinese state agency made to buy or lease a local airport adjacent to a military zone.

The Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) reported on March 4 that the  director of the Polar Research Institute of China (PRIC), the head of the polar research of China’s State Oceanic Administration, and a military attaché from Chinese Embassy in Finland, led a delegation, and traveled to Kemijärvi in 2018 with a plan to buy the airport. The airport would be used for landing and take-off of Arctic research airplanes. The Chinese side did not rule out covering the costs of renovating and expanding the airport.

“Their intention was to conduct Arctic research on the polar ice cover. They would have needed a base for these operations in Kemijärvi. A large jet aircraft with different measuring equipment would have come there, and they would have flown to the North Pole, taken their measurements and flown back,” explained Kemijärvi’s Mayor Atte Rantanen.

The flight route would have also made observations possible over the Arctic Ocean and the Northeast Passage, which is an area of interest to both China and Russia.

The 3,000-nautical-mile-long Northeast Passage of the Arctic Route, sailing westward through the Bering Strait, passing through the Chukchi Sea along the northern waters of the Eurasian continent, through the Barents Sea to the vicinity of the North Cape of Norway, and finally arriving at various ports in Europe, is the shortest sea channel to connect China and Europe. From the perspective of maritime transport efficiency, the Arctic route is 12 to 15 days less than the traditional route, known as the “Golden Waterway.”

The Kemijärvi municipal airport and airspace is adjacent to the Rovajärvi firing range, which  the Finnish Defence Forces often use. After receiving the Chinese proposal, the city inquired about the response of the Defence Forces to the idea. “There was a clear view from the army that this type of activity could not be carried out there. It’s too close to Rovajärvi,” said Mayor Rantanen.

Anu Sallinen, a consultant with the Finnish Ministry of Defence, also told YLE that the idea to buy the Kemijärvi airport came to the Ministry three years ago. She noted that the property is unlikely to be sold to a foreign state-owned enterprise as it is next to a strategically important firing range. Moreover, such a proposal would be unrealistic given the 2020 EU legislation restricting foreign investment. China currently has Arctic research centers in Greenland, Iceland and Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, situated north of mainland Europe.

Source: Radio France International, March 5, 2021
https://rfi.my/7BxW.T

A report from Holland made serious allegations against Huawei, China’s tech giant that supplied mobile cellphone network equipment for KPN, a Dutch mobile telecom company that also operates in Belgium, Germany and France. According to the report, Huawei was able to monitor any calls that subscribers made, even including the Prime Minister and several cabinet ministers.

According to reports from The Daily Mail on April19, “Huawei staff were able to monitor all of KPN’s mobile users and eavesdrop on their private conversations. According to the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant, the staff even knew which numbers the police or intelligence agencies were tapping.”

“The newspaper cited a report that consultancy firm Capgemini prepared for KPN, which it said flagged that Huawei could have been accessing users’ calls in 2010 without KPN knowing.”

“Huawei was, allegedly, even able to monitor phone calls that the former Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, government ministers and Chinese dissidents made.”

Ma Yongtao, a Chinese citizen movement activist living in exile in the Netherlands, told Radio Free Asia that this is a real-life version of the movie “The Lives of Others.” Ma said, “Unlike the former East German regime, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been practicing high-tech totalitarianism not only in China, but around the globe. The CCP allows Huawei to enter the Western market as a private company with a low price and then it acts as a tool for its expansion.”

According to an anonymous source, Huawei remains a key supplier to KPN. This even includes the radio antenna equipment for its 5G network. This means that the company’s mobile network now runs almost entirely on Huawei equipment and technology. The source warned that once the Western governments start to monitor Huawei, Huawei can immediately turn off its surveillance functions. In Europe, he said, if these telecom companies cannot remove Huawei equipment, the security risks will remain.

The Daily Mail added, “The report’s findings were so shocking that the internal report was kept secret, de Volkskrant reports.  … ‘The continued existence of KPN Mobile is in serious jeopardy as licenses can be revoked or the government and businesses can lose their trust in KPN if it becomes known that the Chinese government can eavesdrop on KPN mobile numbers and shut down the network,’ the report said.”

The report disclosed that Huawei, as early as 2004, was acquiring the information of the then Dutch telecom company Telfort, which was later merged with KPN. In 2009, KPN started using Huawei’s network technology and hired six Huawei employees to work at its headquarters in the Hague.

KPN switched to working with Ericsson and Nokia only after the Dutch intelligence agency AIVD issued an alert and launched a security investigation into the matter. After the report came to light, KPN said it found no evidence of wiretapping by Huawei and insisted that it had not outsourced its core network to Huawei.

Source: The Daily Mail, April 19, 2021
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9487631
Radio Free Asia, April 20, 2021
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/nd-tap-04202021114941.html