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

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

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

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

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Biden Said U.S. Will Defend Taiwan In the Event of a China Invasion

The 60 Minutes TV program that aired on Sunday, September 18, showed an interview with U.S. President Biden on September 15, in which Biden clearly stated that the U.S. will defend Taiwan.

The 60 Minutes correspondent, Scott Pelley, asked President Biden,”What should Chinese President Xi know about your commitment to Taiwan?”

Biden answered, “We agree with what we signed onto a long time ago,” “that there’s one China policy, and that Taiwan makes its own judgments about their independence. We are not moving– we’re not encouraging their being independent. We’re not– that– that’s their decision.”

“But would U.S. forces defend the island?” Pelley asked.

“Yes, if in fact there was an unprecedented attack,” Biden said.

“So unlike Ukraine, to be clear, sir,” Pelley continued, “U.S. forces, U.S. men and women would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion?”

“Yes,” Biden replied.

Many observers felt this would shift the U.S. policy on defending Taiwan from “strategic ambiguity” to “strategic clarity.”

This is the fourth time that President Biden said the U.S. will defend Taiwan if China invades the island. He made similar statements last October and also in May this year.

Each time afterward, including the recent 60 Minutes interview, the White House spokesperson said the U.S. position on Taiwan has not changed.

Robert Tsao, a Taiwanese tech tycoon, told Financial Times in an interview that Taiwan’s stand-off with China is not about unification or independence. “These are fake issues,” he said. “China’s nationalism is anti-civilizational. Taiwan, on the other hand, stands on the side of civilization, which values reason, science, progress, peace, human rights, the rule of law and democracy. That is why we cannot be together with them.(ie. with China)”

Sources:
1. VOA, September 20, 2022
https://www.voachinese.com/a/us-taiwan-china-2022-09-19/6754043.html
2. CBS, September 18, 2022
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/president-joe-biden-taiwan-60-minutes-2022-09-18/
3. Financial Times, September 20, 2022
https://www.ft.com/content/e72d62af-7f01-40d4-83dc-b15612cf9764

Briefings | | |   @CS Defense/Military US-China Relations

The China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) Is Delinquent in Malaysia

More than 50 subcontractors and local suppliers for the Light Rail Transit 3 (LRT3) packages GS05 and GS06 in Malaysia protested to China’s Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) because they have been delinquent on payments for over a year.

The peaceful demonstration took place at Seksyen 1, Shah Alam, on September 14.

The protesters said that the China Railway 17th Bureau Group, or CRCC 17, owed them payments coming to a total of 25 million MYR (Malaysian Ringgit), or US $5.5 million. CRCC 17 has promised to make the payment several times in the past, but has never done so.

In the past couple of years, China’s real estate companies have struggled to pay their debts on time, but those were mostly private companies and related to construction projects within China. This case involves a state-owned enterprise that is delinquent on an overseas project.

Source: eNanYang.my, September 14, 2022
https://www.enanyang.my/财经新闻/抗议拖欠2500万-承包商要中铁17局还钱

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources Geo-Strategic Trend

China’s Local Government Debt Issuance Up 24 Percent in the First 8 Months

According to the Choice database of East Money Information, a Chinese financial and stock information provider, the scale of total local government debt issuance in the first eight months of this year reached 6.05 trillion yuan ($870 billion), an increase of 24 percent year-on-year. Among them, the newly issued local debts issued were 4,021 billion yuan, up 62.4 percent year-on-year. Of the new local debts, 3,519.1 billion yuan ($505 billion) were  specifically for special bonds.

There were three small and medium-sized bank special bonds, one important type of special bonds, with a total amount of 48.5 billion yuan ($7.0 billion), including 5 billion yuan ($0.72 billion) by the Dalian city government, 30 billion yuan ($4.3 billion) by Gansu, and 13.5 billion yuan ($1.9 billion) by Liaoning.

The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) said that it has worked with the Ministry of Finance and the central bank – the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) – to accelerate the issuance of special bonds by local governments to supplement the capital of small and medium-sized banks. In the first half of this year, CBIRC allocated 103 billion yuan ($17.5 billion) of special debt quota to Liaoning province, Gansu province, Henan province, and Dalian city.

Source: Sina.com, September 2, 2022
https://finance.sina.com.cn/roll/2022-09-02/doc-imizmscv8739259.shtml

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

In August, China Suffered its Biggest Monthly Decline in Chip Production

According to data released by China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on September 16, 2022, China’s integrated circuits (ICs) production in August 2022 was down by 24.7 percent year on year to 24.7 billion units. It is the largest monthly decrease since 1997 when NBS started collecting data. For the first eight months of 2022, China’s total semiconductor output fell by10 percent year on year to 218.1 billion units.

According to statistics from the business database platform Qichacha, a record 3,470 companies in the semiconductor business went out of business in the first eight months of the year. Analysts attributed it to China’s zero-COVID-19 policy and sluggish consumer demand. Chinese semiconductor companies cannot hold on and have eventually withdrawn from the semiconductor business one after another.

According to the NBS, in August,the  production of microcomputers dropped by18.6 percent to 317.5 billion units, marking the largest drop since December 2015,  The microcomputer category includes personal computers, smartphones, video game consoles, and other handheld electronic devices.

Sources:

China’s National Bureau of Statistics, September 16, 2022
http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/zxfb/202209/t20220916_1888302.html

Sina.com, September 14, 2022
https://finance.sina.com.cn/tech/it/2022-09-14/doc-imqqsmrn9012387.shtml

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

China Builds More Nuclear Power Plants

The standing Committee of China’s State Council recently approved the Zhangzhou (Fujian Province) Nuclear Power Plant Phase Two project and the Lianjiang (Guangdong Province) Nuclear Power Plant Phase One project. Guangdong province will have ten nuclear plants which will range 30 to 250 miles away from Hong Kong.

So far this year, China has approved the new construction for 10 nuclear power generation units. This is the highest in quantity since the year 2008. In that year China approved 14 units.

As of June of this year, China had 54 nuclear power generation units in operation, ranking third in the world. It also has 23 units under construction or in the pipeline, which would give it the top ranking in the world.

Source: Radio Free Asia, September 15, 2022
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/nuke-09152022093318.html

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

626 Million Surveillance Cameras Are All over China: 432.2 surveillance cameras per 1,000 people

According to a 2019 projection by IHS Markit, a leading information analysis firm, 54 percent, or 540 million, of the more than 1 billion surveillance cameras deployed around the world by the end of 2021 are or will be deployed in China. In fact, this is a low estimate. The latest statistics and estimates put the number of public surveillance cameras across China at 626 million.

A study published by the information research firm Comparitech on July 11, 2022 analyzed that if one takes the lower estimate, which is 540 million surveillance cameras deployed in China, there is an average of 372.8 surveillance cameras per 1,000 people; if adopting the higher estimate, 626 million surveillance cameras, that translates into an average of 432.2 surveillance cameras per 1,000 people. By either figure, the ratio exceeds that of the other most populous cities in the world by hundreds of times.

For example, in the world’s largest city, Tokyo, the capital of Japan, there is an average of only 1.06 surveillance cameras per 1,000 people; the fifth largest city, Mexico City, Mexico, has an average of only 3.62 surveillance cameras per 1,000 people. New York, the largest city in the United States has an average of 6.87 surveillance cameras per 1,000 people. The second largest city, Los Angeles, has an average of 8.77 surveillance cameras per 1,000 people.

Among the hundreds of millions of surveillance cameras installed in China, more than 200 million surveillance cameras are controlled by the Chinese police force’s ‘Skynet’ surveillance system. It spreads across commercial and residential areas and highways. The ratio is almost one surveillance camera for every two Chinese people.

Source: Voice of America, August 26, 2022
https://www.voachinese.com/a/ai-technology-has-become-an-effective-tool-for-china-s-control-over-its-citizens-20220826/6718069.html

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

China Has Collected Millions of DNA Samples in Tibet

According to a Citizen Lab, which is affiliated with the University of Toronto, China’s police have conducted a mass DNA collection program in Tibet. It is estimate that between June 2016 and July 2022, police have collected DNA samples from between 1/4 to 1/3 of Tibet’s total population, targeting men, women and children and even including Buddhist monks.

In early September, a report released by Human Rights Watch disclosed that Chinese police had collected DNA from people in Tibet in at least 14 locations. Procurement documents on the Chinese government’s official website show that the Tibetan police authorities conducted a public tender for “DNA database construction” back in July 2019, with a budget of RMB 10 million ($1.43 million).

Chinese authorities have justified mass DNA collection as a tool to fight crime, find missing people, and ensure social stability. There have been media reports on a mass DNA collection campaign in the Xinjiang area and a police-led national program of male DNA collection. Since the Y chromosome in males is rarely mutated during genetic transmission, having the Y chromosome DNA data of a male is equivalent to having the data of multiple generations of paternal members of his family. While in other countries this collection is primarily used to assist in criminal investigations, China has been collecting samples of male DNA on a large scale.

Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), September 15, 2022
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202209150352.aspx

Briefings | | |   Social Stability

Lhasa, Tibet Suffered a Severe COVID Outbreak

Recently, Lhasa, the capital city of Tibet, suffered a severe COVID outbreak. The Epoch Times interviewed residents there. One interviewee said that people were telling each other that a quarter of the total 800,000 residents have already been infected. When a city reported COVID cases, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) imposed a strict “Zero-COVID” policy and took drastic measures to quarantine people including even many who were not infected. On the other hand, the authorities reported low infection counts to make things look good and to hide the real situation.

The numbers released by the authorities are at a low one hundred or even lower. There were 86 cases on September 14, 95 cases on September 13, 137 cases on September 12, and 122 cases on September 11.

The interviewee said that authorities conducted PCR tests every three or four days and each time an additional person in the community would be reported as positive. Then the authorities sent loads of buses at night to take all the people in the same building to quarantine them in a centralized location.

Another interviewee mentioned that Lhasa has three big modular hospitals, each of which can hold 10,000 people and a dozen smaller ones, each with a capacity of one or two thousand. All of them have been filled. The authorities are building new modular centers in suburban areas, but that’s not fast enough. So they started to take buildings from schools and construction sites, most of which were not completely finished yet, as quarantine sites.

Source: Epoch Times, September 18, 2022
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/22/9/18/n13827559.htm

 

Briefings | | |   Social Stability