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
Qiushi Publishes Xi’s Speech at CCP Plenary Session
Qiushi, the flagship publication of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) central committee, recently released a talk that Xi Jinping gave at a meeting of the sixth plenary session of the 19th CCP Central Committee that took place in November 2021. Xi demanded that the all CCP members be loyal to the Party and that those who “run political gangs and interest groups inside the Party” should be disciplined without mercy.
Xi Jinping said that the “historical resolution” passed by the sixth plenary session emphasized the importance of the “centralized and unified leadership of the Party” which “requires the entire body of CCP members unite under the Party’s banner into ‘a piece of solid steel’ and move forward in unison.”
Xi added that the risks and challenges facing the CCP on its “new journey” will only become more and more complex and will even include unimaginable shock waves. “Different struggles . . . will accompany the whole process of achieving the ‘second century’ goal.” The second centenary goal is Xi’s ambition to build China into “a great modern socialist country in all respects” by 2049. That date is 100 years from the time of the 1949 revolution that put the CCP in power. The related first century goal, which was to double the 2010 GDP and double the 2010 income of both urban and rural residents by 2020 is about 100 years from the date of the founding of the CCP in 1921.
Xi concluded by saying that, at the centennial year of the Party, it is important to be vigilant, to look out for danger in times of peace, and to be on guard at all times against the possibility of the CCP becoming old and sick. “It should neither be slow to react to its own problems, nor be soft to fix them. Otherwise eventually the policies will die as the person-in-charge dies.”
Source: Qiushi, January 1, 2022
http://www.qstheory.cn/dukan/qs/2022-01/01/c_1128219233.htm
Chinese Student Wanted for Acquiring Japanese Security Software under False Identity
Japanese media including NHK and Yomiuri News reported on December 28 that Japanese police have identified a Chinese student who entered Japan and was suspected of attempting to purchase Japanese high-tech security software illegally. He was apparently under the command of a Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officer. The Japanese Police Department has obtained an arrest warrant for the student and will soon issue an international warrant.
Police investigators say the Chinese student, in his 30s, is suspected of having attempted the purchase used the name of a fictitious Japanese company and the person who was in charge in November 2016. The PLA officer who contacted him belonged to China’s “61419th Army,” a unit believed to be the Chinese hacking group Tick, which is responsible for cyberattacks on Japanese companies and research institutions.
Fortunately, the transaction was not concluded because the software company found it suspicious. As the Chinese student has returned to China, Japanese police have received permission to arrest him on suspicion of fraud. They will soon issue an international warrant through Interpol. The Japanese police believe that China is trying to buy Japanese high-tech security software to analyze the weaknesses of Japanese companies’ systems and collect intelligence to carry out cyberattacks.
Source: Radio Free Asia, December 28, 2021
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/japan-12282021094647.html