US-China Relations - 15. page

Columbia University recently saw the launch of Students for a Free Tibet at Columbia University, its first Tibetan student organization and an offshoot of the international organization Students for a Free Tibet (SFT). The association hopes to provide a platform for the students to communicate and engage in activities in solidarity with the people of Tibet who are under the oppressive rule of the Chinese Communist Party.

The organization has put up posters in several academic buildings, inviting students interested in Sino-Tibetan studies and Sino-Tibetan relations to learn about Tibetan culture and participate in campus activities. Examples include such as topics as Tibetan food, movies, and cultural festivals.

On Wednesday September 21, a number of SFT posters “disappeared.” In their place someone scrawled the words “Tibet is an inseparable part of the People’s Republic of China.”

A letter in Chinese appeared next to a poster at Columbia’s School of International Public Affairs (SIPA), warning students that, as Chinese, they should not tolerate but should back down from this “separatist act” and should not be silent or appeased. The letter also stated that SIPA adheres to the spirit of the UN, that the United States does not recognize Tibetan independence, and that students were urged  to say no to “separatist forces” and to protect their own country.

Sveta Li, one of the founders of SFT Columbia, suspected that the Chinese embassy was behind the incident and that the Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) played the role of collecting information from the campus and reporting to the Chinese Embassy.

Li said, “Maybe there are individual students who are spontaneously patriotic, but I think it is more organized.  . . . The Chinese Consulate will certainly not see the emergence of a ‘Tibetan independence’ organization at such an American university.  . . . The Chinese Students and Scholars Association is funded by the Chinese Consulate, and this is a Chinese Communist spy organization.”

In 2017 when the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) invited the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetans, to speak at its graduation ceremony, the Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) organized a protest. At a memorial event of the Tiananmen Massacre on June 4 this year, also at UCSD, Chinese students violently tore down posters and sabotaged candles on campus.

Source: Radio Free Asia, September 23, 2022
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/us-poster-09232022114430.html

A group of netizens set up a Chinese version of “Free XinJiang” on an American social media site, Reddit, to provide a platform for Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims and supporters to communicate in Chinese, and to upload reports and information on the Chinese Communist authorities human rights violations in XinJiang.

However, just within the first 23 hours after its creation, Reddit received a large number of malicious complaints that had been filed against this information on the Chinese Communist authorities’ human rights violations.

Tony, the administrator of the “Free Xinjiang” section, suspected that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), through its online army consisting of fifty-centers, had made these illegal “posts” and then filed these “complaints,” thereby triggering the shutdown of the channel. He also suspected that that since Reddit had been taking investments from Tencent since 2019, it had become an accomplice of the Chinese Communist Party.

In February 2019, Reddit announced that it had raised $300 million in Series D funding, half of which came from Tencent, the top Chinese internet company. In 2020, Tencent participated in Reddit’s Series E round of funding again.

Source: Radio Free Asia, September 5, 2022
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/reddit-09052022123021.html

Well-known Chinese news site NetEase (NASDAQ: NTES) recently reported that the office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) said that the four-year-old tariffs on China will be extended. The reason for this decision is that the office has received hundreds of related requests from U.S. businesses. In the meantime, a tariff review process will follow. USTR Katherine Tai, the United States Trade Representative, has urged the maintenance of punitive tariffs on Chinese goods. She said she was reluctant to give up the leverage provided by the tariffs. Her attitude determines that it is difficult to cancel the US tariffs on China. In addition to the tariffs, more powerful trade measures are being considered, such as restructuring the high-tech industrial chain and restricting high-tech exports to China before making an investment. Recently, the U.S. government has been discussing a bill with Congress. It is an investment restriction bill that would require U.S. companies to disclose in advance which Chinese industries they may invest in  while establishing a system within the U.S. government that would empower the U.S. government to prevent directly any U.S. companies from investing in China. The reasons for the intensification of China-US trade tensions is that the relationship between the two countries is changing from trading partners to competitors. The Biden administration’s strategic positioning against China has undergone a fundamental change. The two world economic powers, China and the United States, are currently confronting each other in political, economic and security realms. After the U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan last month, the escalation of tension in the Taiwan Strait made the relationship between the two countries even worse.

Source: NetEase, September 4, 2022
https://www.163.com/dy/article/HGCFM59I055325NQ.html

Radio France Internationale (RFI) Chinese Edition recently reported that five companies, including PetroChina, Sinopec, Aluminum Corporation of China, China Life, and Shanghai Petrochemical announced separately that they applied for the voluntary delisting of their American Depositary Shares from the New York Stock Exchange. The China Securities Regulatory Commission issued a statement on “Initiating delisting from the U.S. for Individual Chinese Companies.” The Commission explained that, “ever since these companies listed in the United States, they have strictly abided by the rules and regulatory requirements of the U.S. capital market. They made the choice of delisting out of their own business considerations.” The Commission further stated that listing and delisting are the norm in the capital market. Previously, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced on May 4 that it had included more than 80 Chinese companies on its scheduled delisting list, and ordered these companies to submit evidence that they met the listing conditions before May 25. Under the U.S. Foreign Company Accountability Act of 2020, the committee can remove foreign companies from U.S. securities markets if they fail to comply with U.S. auditing standards for three consecutive years. Beijing and Washington are negotiating the resolution of the longstanding audit disputes. U.S. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said on July 27 that U.S. and Chinese officials must reach an agreement “as soon as possible” to obtain audit papers of Chinese companies in order to avoid the delisting of U.S.-listed Chinese stocks.

Source: RFI Chinese, August 12, 2022
https://bit.ly/3pexEUS