Geo-Strategic Trend - 87. page

As the centennial of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), propaganda activities in film, television and pop culture are in full swing, the authorities are also bringing in Westerners to “tell the China story.” The Shanghai Municipal Government and the Xinmin Evening News cooperated to produce a series of videos entitled “100 Years of the Great Party – Foreigners Tell the Stories.”

The series interviews 100 foreigners from all over the world, including artists, scholars, scientists, entrepreneurs, and sports stars, who share their feelings about Shanghai. The film was set to be shown for 100 days starting from April 8th.

The first episode featured Malcolm Clarke, an English film maker who received two Academy Awards for Best Documentary. In 2020, Clarke and his team were allowed to stay in the city of Wuhan to shoot a documentary about the outbreak of Covid-19.

Zhou Huilin, the propaganda chief of the CCP’s Shanghai Municipal Committee, said she hoped that the foreign media would “continue to adhere to an objective and impartial stance” in their reporting, so that the international community could understand the CCP, China and Shanghai.

Source: Central News Agency, April 9, 2021
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202104090171.aspx

The primary Taiwanese news agency Central News Agency (CNA) recently reported that Liu Yuguang, a mainland China scholar on Buddhism, warned that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses Buddhism as a diplomacy tool in order to expand its influence over Southeast Asian governments.

Liu Yuguang, an associate professor at the School of Philosophy, Fudan University, Shanghai, made these remarks at a lecture on Buddhism that the Institute of East Asian Studies of National Chengchi University held in Taiwan.

According to Liu, the CCP is attempting to legitimize its claim that China is a “Buddhist power” by touting the fact that the total number of Buddhist believers in mainland China exceeds those in other Southeast Asian countries. Also, since Buddhism in India has declined, the CCP has been promoting China as the “new motherland of Buddhism.” It is part of the CCP’s internal propaganda that “Buddhism is the Chinese people’s religion,” which is used to stoke nationalism. However, although the CCP provides some breathing space for Buddhism, it is a quid pro quo. “I let you live, so you have to serve me.”

While domestically, the CCP views religions as a national security matter, such as subversion, secession, and religious terrorism, it has not neglected turning Buddhism into a diplomacy tool for foreign relations.

According to Liu, the CCP has realized that Confucius Institutes outside China have failed as a large-scale foreign propaganda tool because people think that “after all, they [Confucius Institutes] are merely about Chinese.” To expand the CCP’s influence effectively, it has turned to Buddhism as a propaganda tool in its attempts to influence Southeast Asian countries’ believers in Buddhism and their governments. Because Buddhism is practiced throughout Asia, the CCP believes that using Buddhism in its diplomacy will eventually help influence the Asian governments.

For example, the CCP has established religious educational institutions in mainland China such as the Nanhai Buddhist Academy on Hainan Island. The purpose is not to offer training to domestic religious communities but to attract monks from Southeast Asian countries such as Cambodia and Laos. The religious educational institutions help the CCP cultivate relationships with Southeast Asian countries and ultimately use religion to influence political circles in Southeast Asian countries and to lobby and promote bilateral relations on terms favorable to China.

Source: CNA, April 1, 2021.
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202104010249.aspx

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who was visiting the United Arab Emirates, said he wanted to promote greater use of local currency settlements in Sino-Arab trade and investment. Wang said that the two countries should raise the level of financial and investment cooperation, “promote the use of local currency settlement in bilateral trade and investment,” and work together to build the Sino-Arab “Belt and Road” international exchange.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov mentioned the same issue during a meeting with Wang Yi in Guangxi, China. He said that Russia and China should promote settlement in local currency through autonomous innovation in the technology industry and get rid of the international payment system controlled by the West.

In recent years, Russia, hit by U.S. sanctions, has sought to promote “de-dollarization.” The BBC previously reported that the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), of which Russia is a member, will promote trading in its own currency in 2020, bypassing the US dollar and the euro. The alliance also includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

Recently, the share of U.S. dollar settlements in China-Russia trade has also been decreasing. According to the Financial Times, 90 percent of Russia-Chinese trade was settled in U.S. dollars in 2015, but by Q1 of 2020, that share dropped to less than 50 percent.

Also recently, China has emphasized the importance of the “internationalization” of the RMB. Fang Xinghai, Vice Chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), said in June 2020 that external financial pressure has made the internationalization of the RMB an urgent issue and it should be accelerated over the next 10 years. Against the backdrop of the U.S.-China trade war, he also mentioned that many Chinese financial institutions and enterprises conduct their business internationally using the U.S. dollar payment system. However, the Russian experience has forced China to take early precautions and respond well.

In addition, China and Iran recently signed an agreement to invest US$400 billion over the next 25 years, the details of which have not been made public. However, on March 28, Chinese scholar Jin Canrong quoted Iranian reports on his Weibo account which said that “oil and other commodity trade transactions between China and Iran will be settled in RMB and China’s new digital currency, avoiding the US dollar.”

Source: Central News Agency, March 28, 2021
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202103280182.aspx

On March 22, EU foreign ministers decided to impose sanctions on four Chinese officials and one institution because they violated the human rights of the Muslim minority in Xinjiang. China quickly reacted by announcing retaliatory sanctions against ten individuals and four entities in Europe, including European Parliament members, think tanks and scholars. In response, the European Parliament cancelled a review meeting on the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI), casting a shadow over whether it can be implemented in the future. Winkler Gyula, vice-chair of the European Parliament’s International Trade Committee, reacted quickly, saying that, “In view of the latest developments in the relationship between the EU and China today, especially the unacceptable sanctions (that China issued), the European Parliament has decided to abolish the original plan for China and Europe scheduled for the 23rd, which is a review meeting of the Comprehensive Investment Agreement.” Several members of the European Parliament also made it clear that it would be impossible to continue the review of the agreement if their colleagues were still on China’s sanction list. The EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) was concluded in principle by the leaders of the EU Council in December 2020, pending ratification by the European Parliament.

At a regular press conference on March 23, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying denounced these sanctions as “being based on lies and false information”  and criticized the EU in a strong tone. “The European side cannot expect to talk about cooperation on the one hand, while conducting sanctions on the other, to the detriment of China’s rights and interests. … The European side should reflect on itself.”

Thorsten Benner, director of the Berlin-based German think tank Global Public Policy Institute (GPPI), told Radio Free Asia that the EU’s use of the mechanism of the recently adopted Magnitsky Act to impose sanctions on China, Russia, Myanmar and other human rights abusers simultaneously was a “symbolic move” that had been considered for a long time. He felt that Beijing’s choice of high-profile counter-measures was “extraordinary” and that the approach of targeting scholars and think tanks that promote China-EU exchanges was “extreme.”

“I think Beijing’s is attempting to dominate the escalating Europe-China relationship, showing the EU that whatever you do, I will hit back harder is to show the EU that you are no match for us (China).” European countries have always had economic considerations in their policies toward China, but Benner predicts that China’s assertive approach will have “side effects” and that “Beijing is pushing the Europeans into the arms of Washington and putting the politicians who endorsed the CAI, led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in an untenable position.”

The day before, the United States also joined forces with the European Union, the United Kingdom and Canada to sanction a number of Chinese officials. The U.S. Secretary of State also issued a joint statement with the foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand condemning the Chinese government’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

In the press conference, Hua Chunying not only named the past records of the United States, Britain, Canada and France mentioning colonization or violations of human rights, but also talked about the history of Nazi Germany’s holocaust of millions of Jews. Hua declared that China is not afraid of being isolated by the so-called “democratic alliance” and boasted that China’s circle of friends is bigger. “We are not worried at all! The U.S., U.K., and Canada plus the EU only account for about 11 percent of the world’s population, while China accounts for 1/5 of the world’s population.”

For Alex Dukalskis, a professor at the University of Dublin, China’s use of the history of Nazi is “extremely ironic” and flawed. “European countries have been reflecting on these histories for decades, and Germany in particular has been frank about (its mistakes) in this regard. –This is exactly what China has been unwilling to do. From a diplomatic point of view, these Chinese arguments and insults are hardly effective in convincing Europeans to continue the communication. Human rights is part of European values and politics.”

Source: Radio Free Asia, March 23, 2021
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/junshiwaijiao/jt-03232021134339.html

Global Times recently reported, based on Indian media messages, that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent mail not long ago to Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan. The letter expressed the willingness to establish a “close and friendly relationship” with Pakistan. The “immediate priority” is to create an atmosphere of trust free from terror and hostility. The Modi letter sent greetings to the people of Pakistan on the occasion of “Pakistan Day.” He also gave his best wishes for their fights against the Covid-19 pandemic. According to Indian media, there have been “positive changes” seen in the relationship between India and Pakistan. Last month, India and Pakistan agreed to stop cross-border firefights in the Kashmir region. On March 22, a delegation of Pakistani officials arrived in India to participate in a meeting of the Indus River Standing Committee. This is the first such dialogue between India and Pakistan in two and a half years. Indian Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla also said recently that India hopes to maintain a good-neighborly and friendly relationship with Pakistan and is committed to solving problems bilaterally.

Source: Global Times, March 24, 2021
https://world.huanqiu.com/article/42R9xEevvWm

Radio France Internationale (RFI) Chinese Edition recently reported that, according to the numbers released by Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC), last year there was around CA$43.6 billion (around HK$169 billion, or US$34.6 billion) in money transferred from the Hong Kong banking system to the Canadian banking system via EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer). This is a record high since 2012. The total is the equivalent of moving around two percent of all of Hong Kong’s savings accounts. This 2020 amount represents a 10 percent increase from 2019, or 46 percent increase from 2016. Hong Kong has one of the largest Canadian overseas communities. There are around 300,000 Canadians living in Hong Kong. According to Canadian Equitable Bank, since June 2020 when the Hong Kong National Security Law took effect, the bank saw a high increase of savings funds flowing from Hong Kong. This number only includes transactions larger than CA$10,000. Reuters interviewed many immigration advisors, lawyers and real estate agents and found a lot of Hong Kong residents are eager to start their new life in Canada as soon as the Covid-19 pandemic travel restrictions are relaxed. They intend to bring millions of Canadian Dollars’ worth of wealth with them. Britain and Australia are two other hot destinations.

Source: RFI Chinese, March 26, 2021
https://bit.ly/3lVZlPC