US-China Relations – Page 28

HKET: Chinese Companies Speed up Negotiations with U.S. to Secure LNG Supply

Hong Kong Economic Times (HKET), the leading financial daily in Hong Kong, recently reported that, due to energy shortage concerns, China is trying to finalize a supply deal with U.S. exporters of liquefied natural gas (LNG) as soon as possible. Sources revealed that major Chinese energy companies are in in-depth negotiations with U.S. exporters to secure long-term LNG supply. These negotiations may lead to agreements worth tens of billions of dollars, which could indicate a major surge in China’s LNG imports from the United States. It is worth noting that during the fierce US-China trade war in 2019, the natural gas trade was once suspended. These talks began at the beginning of this year, but the pace has accelerated in recent months because of the shortage of fuel for power generation and heating in China. Also, this year the price of natural gas in Asia has more than quadrupled, triggering concerns about power shortages in winter. Sources also indicated that at least five Chinese companies are negotiating with U.S. exporters, including large state-owned companies such as Sinopec, CNOOC, and local government sponsored energy distributors like Zhejiang Energy. The U.S. side mainly includes Cheniere Energy and Venture Global. The Chinese buyers have not responded to inquiries.

Source: HKET, October 15, 2021
https://bit.ly/3m8DeY2

Briefings | | October 27, 2021 | Economy/Resources US-China Relations

CCP Newspaper Blasts U.S. for Challenging UN Resolution 2758

In recent days, a senior State Department official accused China of misusing the October 25, 1971, General Assembly resolution 2758 to deprive Taiwan of the opportunity to take part in multilateral organizations.

U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for China, Taiwan and Mongolia, Rick Waters, stated, “We have been actively encouraging member-states, civil society and individuals who care about the problem to support Taiwan’s robust, meaningful participation throughout the U.N. system.”

Global Times, a tabloid newspaper under the Chinese Communist Party’s flagship People’s Daily, published an editorial titled, “The U.S. Will Humiliate itself Challenging UN Resolution 2758, Undermining the one-China principle.”

The newspaper criticized the statement that Waters made as, “an attempt by Washington to issue a fundamental challenge to the one-China principle, trying to break the political status quo of the Taiwan question.”

It went on, “Even the United States, the No.1 Western country, arbitrarily falsified and fabricated the meaning of the UN resolution, completely ignoring its self-claimed responsibility of maintaining international rules. The US has turned itself into a complete political hooligan, which has been an eye-opener for the world.”

The newspaper then dealt a major blow saying, “The current US government is the most incapable and degenerate in the country’s history. The U.S.’ national strength has greatly lost its relative advantage, so the cards of trade and human rights that Washington plays to counter China have almost no effect at all. Meanwhile, the military deterrence from the Chinese mainland is also containing the Taiwan card the US plays. The US then has come to this cheap shot as a ‘new weapon’ to launch an alternative offensive against China.”

Global Times is famous for hawkish, anti-U.S. comments, but saying that the “current U.S. government is the most incapable and degenerate in the country’s history” is probably one of the harshest attacks on the Biden administration.

Source: Global Times, October 24, 2021
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202110/1237157.shtml

Briefings | | October 27, 2021 | US-China Relations

Military: People’s War against U.S. Spies

Amidst the U.S. CIA recruiting staff members who know Chinese, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), via its online account “Jun Zheng Ping” called for a people’s war against the U.S. spies. In Chinese, Jun Zheng Ping (“钧正平”) is the homonym of “军政评” (an abbreviation for “PLA Political Commentary”).

The post is titled, “What should we do when the CIA is on a recruiting spree for Chinese-speaking spies?” It said that, “The CIA’s requirements for recruiting agents were exposed: candidates should understand Mandarin, Shanghainese, Cantonese, or Hakka.”

Then the posting continued, “A few days ago, the CIA announced that it would set up a ‘China Mission Center’ to deal with the so-called ‘China threat.’ The CIA agent recruitment requirements included knowing Mandarin and some Chinese dialects. Hostile forces outside the country have been ‘working hard.’ (We can) never slacken on national security work. The U.S. intelligence services that recruit agents so blatantly must have more sinister and unpleasant means behind the scenes. Still, however cunning the fox is, it cannot fight a good hunter. The only way to maintain national security is to trust the people and rely on the people. (We) need ‘Chaoyang Ladies’ (volunteers to watch for any suspicious people and report them to the authorities); we also need ‘fishing copper fishermen’ (Chinese fishermen taking out U.S. military equipment from the international waters), to fight a ‘people’s war’ against spies, to make it so the spies have no move to take and nowhere to hide!”

CNA: LinkedIn Closes Chinese Website

Primary Taiwanese news agency Central News Agency (CNA) recently reported that the Microsoft-owned social network platform LinkedIn announced that it will close its website in China, which means that the last major U.S. social network publicly accessible in China will close. According to LinkedIn’s official announcement, the reason for this decision was that the operating environment in China has become much more challenging and the Chinese authorities have imposed more compliance requirements. In March, the Chinese Internet Regulatory Authority told LinkedIn that it must strengthen the compliance level of its web content and it must comply within 30 days. In recent months, LinkedIn has notified human rights activists, scholars and journalists who are concerned about the situation in China that their personal records on the platform have been blocked in China because they allegedly contain prohibited content.

Source: CNA, October 14, 2021
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/firstnews/202110140401.aspx

Briefings | | October 18, 2021 | Information/Technology US-China Relations

Wal-Mart Moved Supplier Enablement from China to India

Well-known Chinese news site NetEase (NASDAQ: NTES) recently reported that Walmart announced that its Supplier Enablement under Walmart Global Sourcing is moving from China to India. According to Wal-Mart’s commitment, the company will purchase more than US$10 billion of Indian-made products from India. This relocation work has already started. Walmart did clarify later that this is not a move of the Global Supplier Business Unit, which is independent from Walmart China. Walmart China did not respond directly to inquiries about the reason for the relocation. At least one Chinese Walmart supplier confirmed that it did receive the notification. Walmart entered the Chinese retail market in 1996 and opened its first Walmart store in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province. However, in the four year period from 2016 to 2020, Walmart closed 80 stores in China. Starting from the first quarter of fiscal year 2020, Walmart’s gross profit margin in China has declined for 10 consecutive quarters. There are reports in 2021 that more of its business in China will be sold.

Source: NetEase, October 11, 2021
https://www.163.com/dy/article/GM05S4GT05445BQZ.html

Briefings | | October 18, 2021 | Economy/Resources US-China Relations

Meng’s Release Indicts Huawei

By Eric Chen

On September 25, Meng Wanzhou, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, arrived in Shenzhen, China on a plane specially chartered by the Chinese government. Continue reading →

Perspectives | | October 13, 2021 | @CS Government/Politics Opinion US-China Relations

China’s Leading AI Company Bypassed U.S. Restrictions

SenseTime is a prominent Chinese tech company and an industrial leader in artificial intelligence and facial recognition. In October 2019, the U.S. Commerce Department added SenseTime to its Entity List, which effectively prevents listed entities from obtaining many U.S. tech items. The Department states SenseTime was among a list of Chinese companies that were “implicated in human rights violations and abuses in China’s campaign targeting Uighurs and other predominately Muslim ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.”

In 2020, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security made a subtle tweak to the designation. The company on the Entity List was changed from SenseTime generally to Beijing SenseTime, one of its subsidiaries. As a result, the firm says it can “continue to source” items as long as it doesn’t use its Beijing SenseTime subsidiary.

According to the company, the designation “has not had any material adverse impact on the [parent company’s] business.” It recently told this to potential investors.

Prior to the sanctions, SenseTime was widely referred to as “Beijing SenseTime” and most of the firm’s key patents and trademarks are still owned by Beijing SenseTime while Beijing has the most SenseTime workers listed on LinkedIn.

However, SenseTime’s current ownership chart shows Beijing SenseTime to be an isolated subsidiary. SenseTime’s website no longer lists Beijing SenseTime in its footer, but now lists Shanghai SenseTime.

In April 2019, the New York Times reported that the company had provided facial recognition software to Chinese authorities who then used the software to monitor Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

Source: IPVM, September 28, 2021
https://ipvm.com/reports/sensetime-sanctions
Axios, September 29, 2021
https://www.axios.com/chinese-tech-firm-sidesteps-sanctions-de43feaf-7df5-46ad-85bd-8a37ab468e2e.html

Briefings | | October 5, 2021 | US-China Relations

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