Chinascope – Page 126

China Released 20 Measures on the Control of COVID

The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) Politburo held a meeting on November 10 to review its COVID policy, including 20 measures it proposed on “optimizing” the control of COVID. The next day, the State Council published the 20 measures.

Some highlights of the new rules are:

Measure #1: Those who had close contact with a COVID patient will follow the “5+3” rule (five days of centralized quarantine followed by an additional three days of home quarantine) instead of the current “7+3” rule.

Measure #2: Stop identifying the second-level contacts (people who had contact with the people who had contact with COVID a patient)

Measure #3: People from high-risk regions going to other places will follow a seven-day home quarantine instead of the current centralized quarantine.

Measure #4: Adjust region’s risk level from “high-media-low” to “high-low.” High-risk is narrowed to a building or a unit (in the past the control was more limited to the residential community which usually is a walled residential compound with many buildings within).

Measure #6: Regions with no COVID cases do not need to have all-people PCR test. The “two tests per day” or “three tests per day” practices will be stopped.

Measure #7: Eliminate the inbound flight meltdown mechanism (stop the airline’s next flight(s) if COVID patients were detected on the current flight). Passengers only need to provide one negative COVID test in the past 48 hours (instead of two negative tests).

Measure #10: People coming into China from other countries will follow the “5+3” rule instead of the current “7+3” rule.

Measure #12: Promote COVID vaccinations.

Sources:
1. People’s Daily, November 10, 2022
http://politics.people.com.cn/n1/2022/1110/c1024-32563558.html
2. People’s Daily, November 12, 2022
http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/html/2022-11/12/nw.D110000renmrb_20221112_2-04.htm

Briefings | | November 13, 2022 | Social Stability

The CCP Conducted More Interference in Canada’s Election Than any Other Country

According to the Canadian media, the Global News’ report on November 7, Canadian intelligence officials warned Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that China has allegedly interfered in Canada’s elections, including funding a clandestine network of at least 11 federal candidates running in the 2019 election.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) reported that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) efforts in interfering in Canada’s election included payments through intermediaries to candidates affiliated with the CCP, placing their agents into the offices of Members of Parliament (MPs) in order to influence policy, seeking to co-opt and corrupt former Canadian officials, and mounting aggressive campaigns to punish Canadian politicians whom the CCP views as threats to its interests.

The intelligence report asserts that China conducts more foreign interference than any other nation.

In 2019, China’s Consulate in Toronto directed a large clandestine transfer of funds to a network of at least eleven federal election candidates and to numerous Beijing operatives who worked as the candidate’s campaign staffers. The funds were allegedly transferred through an Ontario provincial MPP and a federal election candidate staffer. Separate sources who are aware of the situation said a CCP proxy group, acting as an intermediary, transferred around $250,000 to these candidates and staffers.

Some, but not all, members of that alleged network were willing affiliates of the CCP.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on the same day, apparently in response to the Global News’ report, that China and other countries are finding ways to interfere with the Canadian democratic system. The Canadian government has taken strong measures to prevent this. The government established a special committee of senior officials to handle foreign interference during the two federal elections in 2019 and 2022.

Sources:
1. Global News, November 7, 2022

Canadian intelligence warned PM Trudeau that China covertly funded 2019 election candidates: Sources

2. Radio Canada, November 8, 2022
https://ici.radio-canada.ca/rci/zh-hans/新闻/1931263/中国-干涉-资助-加拿大候选人-政府措施

Briefings | | November 9, 2022 | @CS Geo-Strategic Trend Government/Politics

Researcher: China May Have Inflated Its GDP By 30 Percent

Luis Martinez, Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago, published a research paper with a model to analyze a country’s economy. He used the brightness of lights at night from satellite images as a proxy indicator of economic activity. Martinez reasoned that more economic development leads to more infrastructure development, including more streetlights and buildings and more lights. He then compared the stable and credible democracy countries to authoritarian regimes and found that the latter overstate their economy by 30 to 35 percent.

Martinez’s model showed that China’s might have exaggerated its GDP by one-third.

A 2019 report by the Brookings Institution was in agreement with Martinez’s conclusion. It suggested that China overstated its economic growth by 2 percent each year and thus its actual economic volume was 12 percent smaller than the official number.

Source: VOA, November 1, 2022
https://www.voachinese.com/a/satellites-shed-light-on-dictators-lies-about-economic-growth-20221031/6813568.html

Briefings | | November 9, 2022 | @CS Economy/Resources

After the Confucius Institute, the CCP Switched to Promoting the Lu Ban Workshop

The Chinese Communist Party has been promoting the “Lu Ban Workshop (鲁班工坊)” in countries along the path of its Belt & Road Initiative (BRI).

Launched by the Tianjin Municipal Government, the Lu Ban Workshops are named after Lu Ban, a famous Chinese craftsman. They provide vocational education, from mechatronics to applied electronics, and from automation to robotics, to residents of hosting countries, with a focus on local needs.

Xi Jinping has personally promoted the Lu Ban Workshop on several occasions, including at his meetings with presidents from the target countries.

The first workshop was established in Thailand in 2016. There are now 25 Lu Ban Workshops in 19 countries, including Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Pakistan, Thailand, Portugal, and in Central Asian countries.

The Lu Ban Workshop has essentially the same export model as the Confucius Institute: Chinese vocational and technical schools seek local partners in targeted countries and offer courses in those local schools to teach skills related to Chinese standards.

There has been growing concern over the Confucius Institutes as they promote the CCP ideology and impose CCP policy at the local partner school. In the past few years, there has been a wave of interest in closing Confucius Institutes and 104 of the 118 Confucius Institutes at U.S. universities have been closed.

Source: VOA, November 6, 2022
https://www.voachinese.com/a/luban-workshop-china-2022-11-06/6821047.html

Briefings | | November 9, 2022 | @CS Geo-Strategic Trend Government/Politics

Newcastle Ends Sister-City Relationship with Chinese City

Newcastle will end its long-standing twin city relationship with Taiyuan, the capital of China’s Shanxi Province, due to allegations that the government has mistreated Uyghurs.

China has been accused of detaining over one million Uyghur Muslims in what has been called “re-education” camps.

Lib Dem Wendy Taylor, who proposed the motion that was passed unanimously on Wednesday, felt that, given the allegations of “horrific abuses,” Newcastle could not have ties with China.

Since 1985, there has been a partnership with the industrial city of Taiyuan, and delegations have frequently visited Taiyuanside. Regarding the Uyghur people, Ms. Taylor stated, “There is talk of rape, forced sterilization, and even organ harvesting.”

As of 2022, In addition to Newcastle, Taiyuan has a sister city relationships with 12 international cities, including Nashville in the United States .

Source: Radio Free Asia, November 4, 2022
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/Xinwen/8-11042022154745.html

Briefings | | November 9, 2022 | Geo-Strategic Trend

Joint Venture between China’s State-owned and Private Enterprises

The state-owned telecom giant China Unicom has set up a new joint venture with private Internet giant Tencent, while China Mobile has joined hands with JD.com. China Telecom has also partnered with Alibaba. Scholars analyze that the joint venture program is continuing to expand, and that, next year, more large private companies will be included in the wave of creating joint ventures .

On October 27, the country’s State Administration of Market Regulation released a list of approved businesses, which include the new joint venture between China Unicom and Tencent.

Radio Free Asia quotes a Beijing-based political commentator Wu Qiang who states that the “public-private partnership” that people have been concerned about in the past five years has now entered a substantive stage of implementation. Also, the “strategic cooperation” between three large state-owned telecom companies and three private giants indicates the dawn of an era of full governmental control of the economy.

Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), November 3, 2022
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202211030339.aspx

Briefings | | November 8, 2022 | Economy/Resources

State-owned Companies Hold Shares of Kuaishou and Douyin

Following the cooperation between state-owned telecom companies and Chinese internet giants, state-owned media companies have recently taken stakes in two short video platforms, namely, Kuaishou and Douyin.

According to mainland China’s newspaper reports, on October 26th, Kuaishou, a short video-sharing mobile app with a worldwide user base of over 200 million, initiated strategic financing as the investor with the Beijing Radio & Television Station (BRTV), a subsidiary of Beijing municipal government. At present, the two largest shareholders of Kuaishou are Beijing Huayi Huilong Network Technology Co, holding 99 percent of the shares, and BRTV with 1 percent of the shares.

Another short video-sharing platform giant Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, also received an investment from Netinvest Chinese (Beijing) Technology Co. (网投中文北京科技有限公司). At present, Douyin is jointly owned by Douyin Ltd. (99 percent) and Netinvest (1percent).

Netinvest is jointly owned by China Net Investment (Beijing) Technology Co., Beijing Cultural Investment Development Group Co., and China Media Group Mobile. The latter two are both state owned companies, with China Media Group Mobile taking 30 percent of the shares.

There are rumors that the 1 percent of the shares held either by BRTV in Kuaishou or by Netinvest in Douyin is a special management stake with a veto right.

Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), November 6, 2022
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202211060183.aspx

Briefings | | November 8, 2022 | Economy/Resources

Hong Kong’s Third Quarter GDP Continued to Decline

Well-known Chinese news site Sina (NASDAQ: SINA) recently reported that the Census and Statistics Department of the Hong Kong Government just released the advance estimate of GDP for the third quarter of 2022. Compared with the same period last year, the real decline was 4.5 percent, while the decline in the second quarter was 1.3 percent. The Hong Kong government spokesman said that the decline in GDP was mainly due to the weak performance of external demand during the third quarter. For a year-over-year comparison, the total value of exports of goods recorded a real decline of 15.5 percent, which was worse than the 8.4 percent decline in the second quarter. Imports of goods fell by 16 percent in real terms in the third quarter after a 5.9 percent drop in the second quarter of this year. The seasonally adjusted GDP for consecutive quarters fell by 2.6 percent in real terms in the third quarter compared to the second quarter. The deterioration of the external environment and the continued obstruction of cross-border land freight traffic have dealt a serious blow to Hong Kong’s exports. Significant interest rate hikes by major central banks tightened financial conditions and weighed heavily on local demand. Looking ahead, the government spokesman said that a marked deterioration in the external environment will continue to put significant pressure on Hong Kong’s export performance for the rest of the year. Geopolitical tensions and the Covid development will also increase downside risks.

Source: Sina, October 31, 2022
https://finance.sina.com.cn/china/dfjj/2022-10-31/doc-imqqsmrp4424943.shtml

Briefings | | November 7, 2022 | Economy/Resources Geo-Strategic Trend

Wu Guoguang: Xi Jinping’s Reversal of the Course, Will China’s Transition be Peaceful or Marked with Bloodshed?

Cheng Xiaonong: U.S.-China Strategic Relations Have Crystallized

Xinhua Commentaries: “Exposing the Three Major Political Deficits of the U.S.”

The CCP’s Performing Arts Troupes in the U.S.