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Global Times Commentary: Blinken Used Beautiful Words to Sell U.S.’ Strategic Malice

Below is an excerpt from a commentary published in China’s state media Global Times:

“U.S. Secretary of State Blinken delivered a speech on (December) the 14th in Indonesia. It was the first stop on the Southeast Asian tour to promote the United States’ ‘commitment to the security and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific.’ He once again hypocritically elaborated on the concept of a ‘free and open Indo-Pacific,’ claiming that the purpose of the United States in defending a rule-based order is not to suppress any country, but to protect the right of all countries to choose their own path and to ensure that they are free from coercion and intimidation. He also expressed that the United States hopes to avoid conflicts in the Indo-Pacific region.”

“Blinken’s words are empty lies. He has performed using the extreme that the Western politicians use, “noble vocabulary” to convey strategic maliciousness.”

“From the moment when the United States returned to the Asia-Pacific region, to the Indo-Pacific strategy currently in force, what the U.S. has totally been pursuing is a geopolitical plan. Washington has greatly increased its military presence in the South China Sea, expanded its visibility in this region, and intervened in the political process here. All of this is directed at China and is intended to suppress China’s rise.”

“The entire region needs to be able to manage the presence of the United States and make it as harmless as possible. This region must not be ‘dominated’ by the United States, because once that happens, all countries in the region will become tools and materials for serving the United States’ global hegemony.”

Source: Global times, December 14, 2021
https://opinion.huanqiu.com/article/45z9JHkC7rF

2021: More Small Businesses Folded Than Opened

China has issued updated guidance for businesses that wish to close their doors. In 2021, for the first time in twenty years, small business closures exceeded new openings .

On December 29, 2021, five state agencies jointly issued the “Guidelines for Enterprise Deregistration (Revised in 2021).” The five state agencies are the State Administration for Market Regulation, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the Ministry of Commerce, the General Administration of Customs, and the State Administration of Taxation.

Before a business officially terminates, the Guideline requires the company must declare its dissolution, establish a liquidation team, liquidate its property, pay taxes, clear up debts, and pay employee wages and social insurance. After the liquidation, the business can deregister and ceases to exist.

The authorities updated the deregistration guideline after the time when many small businesses folded in 2021.

According to the South China Morning Post, in the first 11 months of 2021, about 4.37 million Chinese small and micro businesses closed their doors. That was more than three times the number of small and micro enterprises that opened in the same period.

On average, more than 390,000 small and micro businesses deregistered each month in 2021, compared to 370,000 in 2020. The deregistration in 2021 also outnumbered new registration for the first time in 20 years.

It is predicted that the 2021 annual deregistration is likely to exceed the all-time high of 4.45 million in 2020. The 2020 number almost doubled that of 2019, and the 2019 number was about ten times that of 2018.

Small and micro businesses are an important foundation of China’s national economy, accounting for half of China’s tax revenue, 60 percent of GDP, and 80 percent of urban employment.

Sources:

China Central TV, December 29, 2021
https://news.cctv.com/2021/12/29/ARTIl4ZXOwvvYGcfrkqwHLUp211229.shtml

Zaobao.com, December 31, 2021
https://www.kzaobao.com/shiju/20211231/107661.htmlthe

Cui Tiankai: The United States Is Bound to Contain China, China Must Be Fully Prepared

According to the official website of the China Institute of International Studies, on December 20th, Cui Tiankai, the former Vice Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China and former ambassador to the United States, attended the 2021 International Situation and China’s Foreign Affairs Conference jointly organized by the China Institute of International Studies and the China Foundation for International Studies . Cui delivered a special speech regarding the development of Sino-U.S. relations.

Cui Tiankai pointed out in his speech that Sino-US relations will remain tortuous and turbulent in the future, and China must be fully prepared for this. “The historical stage of the current Sino-U.S. relations status will continue for some time. The United States will not willingly accept the rise of a big country with a very different social system, ideology, cultural traditions and race.

Cui said that The United States is bound to do everything possible to suppress China. China must be fully prepared and not fight battles without full confidence, nor engage in emotional or exhaustive battles.

Source: Sina, December 22, 2021
https://news.sina.com.cn/c/2021-12-22/doc-ikyakumx5610514.shtml

Hu Xijin: We Cannot Do Anything to Intel Right Now; We Will Retaliate in the Future

Chinese media discovered on December 21 (2021) that, on its official website, Intel Corporation of the United States publicly requested that its supply chain not use any labor or purchase any products or services from Xinjiang, China.  Hu Xijin, the former editor-in-chief of the Global Times, commented, “Intel dares to do this because it has very few Xinjiang products in its supply chain and its CPU is still in demand in China at the present time. It is therefore not too worried about retaliation from the Chinese side …”

Hu Xijin said that the Chinese must have both heart and vision. We have to fight tit for tat with the United States, but there is no need to get overly caught up in them. We need to focus more on the domestic agenda. For a business like Intel, let’s take out a small notebook and write down the bad things it does. The stronger China becomes, the better we will be able to retaliate against them.

Source: Sina, December 22, 2021
https://finance.sina.com.cn/chanjing/gsnews/2021-12-22/doc-ikyamrmz0440856.shtml

Minister of Finance: Plan to Live with a Tighter Budget

Liu Kun, China’s Minister of Finance published an article in the 12th issue of the magazine, “Organ’s Party Development Research,” calling on officials to work hard and be thrifty. It doesn’t matter if there is an ample or an insufficient budget, (officials) should always manage income and expenditure as a whole, truly spend the money where it most needs to go, and effectively put the requirement of living on a tight budget into practice.

Source: Sohu, December 29, 2021
https://www.sohu.com/a/512608562_115479

A Chinese Student at Yale Called on the School to Reflect on its Ethics in Investing in China

VOA reported that Yale Daily News, the oldest college newspaper in the United States, published an article that a Chinese student wrote. (His name was protected so that his family members in China would not be endagered). The article, titled, “Where is Peng Shuai,” suggested that people should not forget about Peng Shuai as the (Chinese Communist Party) regime has gone rogue; it no longer bothers even with keeping up a façade of protecting human rights.

More importantly, the article asked Yale to reflect on whether its investment in China is ethical. “Despite having a significant Chinese portfolio, which includes top-earning tech companies like Tencent and JD.com, the Yale Investments Office currently has no publicly available ethical policy specific to China; nor has it reviewed any ethical implications.”

“Shouldn’t we be legitimately concerned that Yale’s Chinese portfolio might create a conflict of interest between placating parties close to the CCP and using Yale’s influence to advocate for Chinese people’s human rights? Additionally, what has prevented Yale, while profiting from China, from just releasing a statement acknowledging that human rights abuse allegations even exist?”

“The Yale endowment needs to do some soul-searching. We are demanding answers to these questions, because we have a right to know whether our University that claims to uphold both ‘light and truth’ is playing an unethical role in perpetuating some of the worst human rights abuses in modern history – and whether our institutional integrity remains intact when doing the right thing is hard.”

Source: VOA, January 4, 2022
https://www.voachinese.com/a/yale-chinese-student-pengshuai-20220103/6380863.html

Pandemic: COVID Spread to Henan and Zhejiang Province

After Xi’an City, Shaanxi Province was fully locked down on December 23, 2021, COVID-19 kept spreading in China. On January 2, 2022, Yuzhou City, Henan Province, with a population
of 1.1 million, became the second city that was fully locked down.  Zhengzhou, the capital city of Henan Province, locked down certain areas of the city. It also blocked any automobiles
which had license plates for Xi’an, Yuzhou, and two other Henan cities, Luoyang and Xu Chang, both also reported that COVID cases were prevented from entering the city. Ningbo City,
Zhejiang Province also reported COVID cases.
Related postings on Chinascope:

Sources:
1. BBC, January 5, 2022
https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-59878415
2. National Business Daily, January 4, 2022
https://m.nbd.com.cn/articles/2022-01-04/2072938.html

China Revises Cybersecurity Review Measures

The Cyber Administration of China (CAC) announced on its website on January 4 that the agency, as well as 12 other government bodies, including the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of State Security, have revised the “Cybersecurity Review Measures.”

The original regulation already took effect in June 2020. CAC pointed out that the revision is due to the implementation of the “Data Security Law” in September 2021, which requires that the state establish a data security review system.

After the revision, article 7 of the Measures stipulates that online platform operators that possess personal information about more than 1 million users must report to the Office of Cybersecurity Review when they go public abroad.

The Measure also specifies that operators of “critical information infrastructures” such as transportation, communications, and finance must also apply for security a review when purchasing network products and services that may affect national security.

It also lists key national security risk factors, including illegal control, the interference or disruption of “critical information infrastructure, possible disruption of product services due to political, diplomatic and trade factors, and the possibility of core data or substantial personal data being influenced, controlled and maliciously used by “foreign governments.”

The revised regulation is to be effective on February 15. It also adds the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) to the cybersecurity review mechanism.

Source: Cyber Administration of China, January 4, 2021
http://www.cac.gov.cn/2022-01/04/c_1642894602144070.htm