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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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UDN: Mainland China Manufacturing PMI Fell in January

United Daily News (UDN), one of the primary Taiwanese news groups, recently reported that, affected by the severe economic environment and the Covid epidemic, Mainland China’s economy had a sluggish start in January this year. The official and private Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) announced yesterday both fell from the previous month. The former was 50.1, approaching the break-even line, the latter was only 49.1, hitting a new low in 23 months. Analysts expressed the belief that after the Chinese New Year, the Mainland authorities need to increase fiscal and monetary policy support in a timely manner to ensure the realization of the goal of “maintaining stability” in the economy. According to data released by the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, in January 2022, the manufacturing PMI was 50.1, narrowed by 0.2 percentage points, indicating that the economic expansion has slowed down. Also released on the same day by Caixin, the “Private Edition” PMI data that mainly reflects small and medium-sized enterprises in China showed that, in January 2022, the Caixin manufacturing PMI recorded 49.1, which was below the growth line of 50, and fell 1.8 percentage points from the previous month. This was the lowest since March 2020. PMI is an indicator of financial activity reflecting purchasing managers’ acquisition of goods and services. A PMI number below 50 typically reflects a decline.

Source: UDN, January 31, 2022
https://udn.com/news/story/7333/6071883

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Nikkei Chinese: 23 Percent of Japan’s Import Categories Get Half of their Volume from China

Nikkei Chinese Edition recently reported that the Cabinet Office of Japan just released its World Economic Trends Report, analyzing the trade structure between major countries and China. The numbers showed that Japan relies more on imports from China than from the United States and Germany. The Report sounded alarms. The concern was that, if Japan maintained its current country-specific structure for Japan’s sourcing strategy it would risk supply chain disruptions. The report showed the number of categories with relatively concentrated import sources in three countries: Japan, the United States and Germany. Judging from the ratio of Chinese sourced value in 2019, Japan reached 23.3 percent, the highest ratio, the United States was 18.1 percent, and Germany was 8.5 percent. Among the approximately 5,000 imported categories, looking at the number of categories in which China’s share (in terms of value) exceeds 50 percent, Japan is 1,133 categories (23.0 percent), higher than the US’ 590 categories (11.9 percent) and Germany’s 250 categories (5.0 percent). Japan relies on China for a wide range of categories, including mobile phones and notebook computers, light-emitting diode (LED) related products, game consoles and toys. Among them, 85.7 percent of the import value in the mobile phone field came from China in 2019, an increase of 69.1 percent from 10 years ago. Imports of laptops and tablets from China reached 98.8 percent in 2019.

Source: Nikkei Chinese, February 4, 2022
https://cn.nikkei.com/politicsaeconomy/investtrade/47517-2022-02-04-10-27-18.html

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

Facing the Real World: China’s Law Professor Was Censored

Within less than two hours of posting, China’s social media WeChat removed a 6000-word post by Lao Dongyan, a law professor at “China’s MIT,” Qinghua University. The title of the posting was, “Facing the Real World.” In 2016, Lao was awarded as The Most Influential Young Scholar in China in the area of the Humanities and Social Sciences. In the posting, Lao reviewed 2021 and looked forward to 2022. She did not mention the CCP leaders.

What did she say that led to the ban?

Lao stated, “In a society full of ‘positive energy’ discourse, the sense of uneasiness spreads like a tidal wave throughout society. The pursuit of freedom is often the subject of ridicule. People are increasingly indifferent to, or they even welcome, the increasing concentration of power and the stepping up of various kinds of control in the name of security, and the tightened rule over society using the technology of big data tracking.”

She continued, “Nearly all the catastrophes of the 20th century were caused by institutional evil. The darkness of human nature compounded by an evil system has repeatedly led to unimaginable tragedies.”  “Be prepared to be interviewed if you publish a diary documenting your daily life under the epidemic. If you show solidarity with a colleague who was expelled for his classroom speech, you may even face the experience of ‘being mentally ill.’”

Lao wrote that her “original intention to promote the rule of law in China has turned out to be pure wishful thinking.” She noted that today the theoretical vision of the rule of law and the actual practice of the rule of law are increasingly running in opposite directions. “What is even more absurd about this is that many of those who have been put in chains are not only not angry about losing their freedoms but they are actually quite comfortable with it. They are like frogs being boiled in increasingly warm water.” “It can be said that many people, including myself, choose just to bear it and retreat, thereby enabling evil people to continue to do evil with impunity. In a sense, we are responsible by our passive inaction and for the deterioration of our environment since we choose to tolerate it and even beat a retreat in the face of it.”

Finally, facing the real world, Lao concluded with a quote from J.K. Rowling’s commencement address at Harvard University. “If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself being in the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change.’ In my opinion, this is the real ‘positive energy.’ May you and I have such ‘positive energy.’”

Source: China Digital Times, January 29, 2022

【404文库】劳燕东飞｜直面真实的世界

Full text of English translation, https://gaodawei.wordpress.com/2022/01/29/2022-chinese-law-profs-lament-and-encouragement/

Briefings | | |   Social Stability

Some IOC Members’ Have Business Connections with China

A report shows that several members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have successful business connections with China. When talking about the IOC’s policies, they have downplayed China’s human rights issue.

John Coates has  been Vice President of the IOC (2013  to 2017 and 2020 to the present) and the President of Australian Olympic Committee: The Daily Beast conducted an investigation that showed that Mr. Coates has been the Chairman of William Inglis & Son Ltd, Australia’s largest and oldest bloodstock auctioneer. In its auction last year, a Chinese buyer bought horses worth over $13 million. In 2019, the auctioneer sold the horses worth $3.5 million to a “secret” China horse club . The company also sponsored “Inglis Sino-Australia Cup” Equestrian Competition in Shanxi Province, China, which the representative of its Chinese office said is the highest-prized competition that Inglis sponsored outside Australia.

Mr. Coates said the IOC pays attention to human right, but pressuring Beijing on the Xinjiang issue is not within the power of the IOC. He said the IOC should respect the hosting country’s sovereignty.

Dick Pound is a member of the IOC and former Vice President of the IOC. Mr. Pound is an advisor to Stikeman Elliott LLP, a Canadian law firm. The company has long history of experiences in China. Its website claims that it has provided legal services to many big Chinese enterprises, and listed several of them including, for example, China National Petroleum Corporation, CITIC Group, China Investment Corporation, along with may others.

Mr. Pound said human rights issues are political when answering Xinjiang forced labor camp and genocide question. He suggested (with hope) that an independent investigation on what is happening in Xinjiang would be helpful and maybe the Chinese are preparing to consider it.

Sebastian Coe, is a British member of the IOC. Mr. Coe is a Non-Executive Board Director of the Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) and receives $130,000 as annual pay. Out of FMG’s several billion dollars in revenue in 2020, ninety percent came from China. A Chinese state-run company is a major shareholder of FMG.

Mr. Coe said last year that an international political boycott of Beijing Winter Olympics had no meaning but would only cause damage.

Source: Epoch Times, February 5, 2022
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/22/2/5/n13557473.htm

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Follow up by IOC and NOS on the Dutch Reporter Who Was Dragged Away in Beijing

On February 4, when a Dutch news reporter Sjoerd den Daas was doing a live broadcast on a street in Beijing, on his home TV station NOS, a Chinese authority’ staff-member in plain clothes grabbed his arm by force and dragged him around. The Chinese staff-member was wearing a red armband (indicating he was from the authorities). He dragged the reporter out of range of the camera and told him that he should not do broadcasting at that location. Then another Chinese staff member also took their lighting equipment. The TV news broadcast was interrupted and the home anchor was shocked and astonished. Sjoerd den Daas then moved to a parking lot at the corner to continue his TV broadcast. Later he told people that he was at the location where the Beijing authorities allowed news reporters to do broadcasts.

The International Olympic Games (IOC) spokesperson Mark Adams said that they had contacted the NOS about this unfortunate incident. He further called it a single incident and assured people that they could continue their work in the “closed loop,” an isolated section that Beijing had set up for the Olympic athletes, staff, and reporters.

However, NOS said that the IOC had not contacted it. The IOC had not contacted the NOS management, the news and sports chief editor, the manager of the Olympic team in Beijing, nor the news reporter himself.  The IOC had not contacted any of them.

Sjoerd den Daas said this was not the first time he received this kind of treatment in China. He tweeted that in the past few weeks, he and several colleagues from other countries, were interfered with or were stopped multiple times when they were reporting about the Olympic Games.

Source: Epoch Times, February 5, 2022
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/22/2/5/n13557122.htm

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Global Times: Alert! Japan Clamors to Use Electromagnetic Guns to Intercept Hypersonic Weapons

Global Times, an English-language Chinese newspaper under People’s Daily recently reported that Japan is working on electromagnetic railgun technology to counter hypersonic missiles. This is because Japan is eager to deal with hypersonic weapons from China, Russia, and North Korea. The country has emphasized the need to strengthen deterrence against China. However, while Japan is exaggerating the threat of hypersonic weapons from other countries and making excuses for its own military spending, Japan is also actively developing offensive weapons including hypersonic missiles. Japan’s Defense Ministry is working on rail-gun technology that can fire artillery shells through electromagnetic acceleration, which means they can be fired faster than conventional interceptor systems and can fire continuously. Along with long-range missiles, this next-generation weapon system will provide Japan with multiple layers of interception capabilities. Hypersonic weapons typically travel at more than five times the speed of sound. In November last year, the Financial Times reported that, in August 2021, China conducted a test of a hypersonic weapon saying that the weapon could launch missiles during flight. North Korea also claimed to have conducted a new test of its Hwasong-8 hypersonic missile in September last year. Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously stated that, in 2022, Russia plans to deploy hypersonic cruise missiles.  Japanese policymakers see hypersonic weapons as the next generation of military weapons and believe Japan must immediately strengthen its deterrent capabilities, especially against China.

Source: Global Times, January 5, 2022
https://mil.huanqiu.com/article/46H3xOyIBJS

Briefings | | |   Defense/Military Geo-Strategic Trend

Global Times Editorial: Washington Set a Fire in the Ukraine; Now the U.S. Should Put it Out

Below is an excerpt from an editorial article that was in China’s state-run media, Global Times::

“U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Nuland revealed at a press conference on (January) 27 that “We are calling on Beijing to use its influence over Moscow” to resolve the Ukraine crisis through diplomatic means.

“Obviously, Washington is trying to create such an impression to influence public opinion. The United States is working very hard to ease the crisis and then kick the ball to Russia and China. The United States is making itself seem like a good person, but it is shifting the responsibility to China and Russia. Washington lit a fire in the Ukraine, posing as a victim, fantasizing that Beijing could ‘persuade’ Moscow to put it out. It must be pointed out that this is a kind of public opinion smoke bomb reversing the cause and the result.

“The root cause of the Ukraine problem is that the United States unrestrainedly promotes NATO’s eastward expansion, forcing Russia into a corner where there is no way to retreat. Washington is the initiator of the crisis. The U.S. hopes that China will come forward to ‘persuade’ Russia. Actually it is hoping that China will persuade Russia to make concessions to the U.S. in order to realize a ‘perfect solution’ which is what the U.S. would like to have. That is, Russia should unconditionally cooperate with the U.S.’s insatiable desires in geopolitical terms. What an absurd logic this is.

“Not only Ukraine, but many major regional crises in recent years have had their roots in Washington, such as the North Korean nuclear crisis, the Iranian nuclear issue, and the chaos caused by the withdrawal of the U.S. military from Afghanistan last year. The United States messed up a region, and finally found that it could not clean up the situation, so it wanted to pull in other countries to pay for it together. Over the years, Washington has wanted China to coordinate in the resolution of almost all major international crises. On the one hand, it is doing its utmost to suppress China, and on the other hand, it looks to China for help. The same is true this time.

“To solve the Ukrainian crisis, if we really need to ‘persuade’ someone, we would like to persuade Washington to give up this zero-sum game and the Cold War mentality as soon as possible and you should put out the fire that you set yourself using the right way.”

Source: Global Times, January 28, 2022
https://opinion.huanqiu.com/article/46aeRs2BVArW

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations