Geo-Strategic Trend - 97. page

Well-known new Chinese news site The Paper recently reported that the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Agreement is set to be signed at the Fourth RCEP Leadership Summit on November 15 in Hanoi, Vietnam. The 10 ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries initiated RCEP. Six dialogue partner countries including China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and India were invited to participate. The aim is to reduce tariffs and non-tariff barriers and establish a 16-nation free trade agreement with a unified market. The negotiations started in November 2012 and covered over ten trade areas including small and medium-sized enterprises, investment rules, economic and technical cooperation, as well as trade in goods and services. However, In 2019, India decided to withdraw from the negotiation citing unresolved important issues. The 15 signing countries account for 30 percent of the world’s population and just under 30 percent of the global GDP.

Source: The Paper, November 14, 2020
https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_9990776

Well-known Chinese news site Sina (NASDAQ: SINA) recently reported that, based on British media reports, UK intelligence agencies MI5, MI6 and GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) are establishing a new program that is currently hiring “mandarin linguists.” The goal of the program is to respond to the “intelligence threats from China.” GCHQ job postings have been listed on its website and the employees will be stationed in London, or Cheltenham, where the GCHQ monitoring and surveillance center is located. GCHQ is one of the largest linguist employers in Britain, and this new effort requires the applicants to perform “accurate analyses” and discover the “insights of the intelligence information.” They will be part of the “core functions” of the intelligence work. China’s intelligence operations now have a very large scale, and the British intelligence community is considered “far behind.” So in addition to hiring more hands, the new program also plans for a new round of technology upgrades. The British intelligence community is set to deepen the cooperation with the “Five Eyes” alliance member countries as well as the European Union.

Source: Sina, October 30, 2020
https://m.us.sina.com/gb/finance/huanqiu/2020-10-30/detail-ihacmqme8729613.shtml

Radio France Internationale (RFI) Chinese Edition recently reported that, under the new political reality after China passed the HK National Security Law, many local primary schools and middle schools are losing students, especially the elite schools. Some well-known schools in this new wave of dropouts lost 40 to 50 students at the end of last school year, and another ten to twenty right after the new school year started. Many professionals in Hong Kong’s education field expressed their concern that another much bigger wave of dropouts will occur after the pandemic in foreign countries concludes. This latest wave is the worst level in a decade. Wealthy parents who hesitated before about whether they should send their children overseas now fast-tracked their decision making and took actions earlier rather than later. One parent who plans to move to Britain herself said she will take her middle-school daughter with her because it is unacceptable for her to receive her education under such a system where the government is tightening control and will intensify “patriotic education.” The dropouts are occurring in all districts of the city of Hong Kong.

Source: RFI Chinese, November 7, 2020
https://bit.ly/2JNLjRl

Slovakia recently passed a law declaring that the former Czechoslovak Communist Party is a criminal organization and prohibited displaying communism and Nazi fascist signs in public. After Ukraine, the three Baltic countries, and Poland, Slovakia became an additional Eastern European country that took similar actions.

The Slovak Parliament passed a legal amendment on November 4, declaring that the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, which was in power from 1948 to 1990, and the branch of the Communist Party in Slovakia are criminal organizations. The reason is that the Communist Party suppressed civil society and restricted the freedom of the people during its ruling period.

The law prohibits signs that symbolize communism, Nazi fascism and other authoritarian political systems from being on monuments and commemorative plaques. It also prohibits naming streets, squares, and other public places after Communists and Nazi fascists. The vast majority of parliamentarians voted affirmatively to support the passage of this law.

In recent years, countries such as Ukraine, the three Baltic countries, and Poland, which have a history of communist rule, have adopted a number of methods to remove communism.  They denounced that communism as being the equivalent of Nazi fascism. The European Parliament also passed corresponding resolutions. Slovakia, once a member of the socialist camp, therefore became another Eastern European country that took similar actions. As early as 1993, in a law on the communist system, the Czech Republic, Slovakia’s neighboring country, defined the Czechoslovak Communist Party as a criminal organization .

Like the Communist Parties in many countries in the world, the Czechoslovak Communist Party was formed in the early 1920s and subsequently received leadership and commands from the Communist International and Moscow. The Czechoslovak Communist Party is also closely linked to political persecution and to bloody repression.

Source: Voice of America, November 6, 2020
https://www.voachinese.com/a/Slovakia-passed-a-bill-to-ban-communist-symbols-20201106/5650850.html

Emma Reilly, a former employee of the United Nations Human Rights Council, said in an interview with a British radio station on Sunday that the UN Human Rights Council secretly provided the Chinese government with the names of Uyghur dissidents who came to the Human Rights Council to testify against China’s human rights violations, and that this situation has lasted for many years.

Reilly said that before each meeting of the UN Human Rights Council, the Chinese government would ask the United Nations whether specific individuals were planning to attend the session. Her boss provided the Chinese government with a list of Uyghur dissidents.

Reilly said, “It is completely against the rules to hand over that kind of information to any government, but the UN makes an exception for China, and only for China. It gives them the names, and China uses that information to harass these people’s family members who are still based in China.”

Reilly said she has been denouncing this since 2013, and this has been going on for years. For speaking out, the UN deprived Reilly of all functions.

The U.S. Congress is now investigating Reilly’s allegations against the UN. Rep. Michael McCaul (R., Texas), an outspoken critic of China, told the Washington based Free Beacon that he is investigating the allegations in his role as the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s lead Republican.

“The U.N. was founded on protecting human rights,” McCaul said. “If this report is true, it is very troubling. We are looking into these allegations.” Sources at the Foreign Affairs Committee also confirmed they are probing the allegations, which could implicate the U.N. in China’s efforts to spy on the Uighur community.

Source: Voice of America, November 3, 2020
https://www.voachinese.com/a/un-misconduct-report-probed-11032020/5646966.html

Taiwanese news site NewTalk recently reported that, according to a global poll commissioned by the British newspaper The Guardian, China’s handling of the pandemic received an overwhelming negative score. Out of 25 countries surveyed, around 80 percent of the people in 24 countries recognized China as the origin of the virus, and that the Chinese government spent a significant effort on covering it up as well as shirking its responsibilities. China is the only country in which the sample population questioned the belief that the government was leading the global anti-pandemic operations. The international poll surveyed 26,000 people in 25 countries, and is for now the poll with the widest coverage. The global population (except China) clearly felt disappointed at how the Chinese dealt with the virus, and how the Chinese diplomats feverishly faked an image of a selfless helper to the world. Among the countries holding China responsible, Nigeria (98 percent), Greece (97 percent), South Africa (97 percent) and Spain (96 percent) were leaders in the poll. Saudi Arabia (83 percent) and the United States (84 percent) were the most generous toward China. Only 52 percent of the Chinese people surveyed thought the virus originated in China and 90 percent of the Chinese believed China was the biggest leader in the world against the virus, while nearly nobody else in the world recognized that leadership.

Source: NewTalk, October 29, 2020
https://newtalk.tw/news/view/2020-10-29/486108

Major Taiwanese news network Liberty Times Network (LTN) recently reported that, according to Italy’s largest newspaper, Corriere della Sera, the Vatican is renewing its two-year agreement with the Chinese government on the appointment of bishops. Both sides refused to comment on this matter. The content of the agreement remains secret. The Vatican’s internal evaluations did not really conclude that this agreement was a good one. However, the attitude was, a bad agreement is better than nothing. The Vatican has been keeping largely silent on China’s human rights violations in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and in the religious communities in China. Some said there is a possibility that Vatican and China may establish a formal relationship in two years. Sources in the Vatican also revealed that China was pleased with the fact that the Pope refused to see U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Source: LTN, October 19, 2020
https://news.ltn.com.tw/news/world/breakingnews/3326104